November 13, 2006
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The Daily News
1 So okay, I break down and finally buy a new pair of shoes.2 I thought they looked really spiffy, shiny, and black for once. VERY dressy.
3 Self-made man.
4 I set out for the Thea-tuh on Saturday night, extensivley to see Debbie Boone and Francis Jue in The King and I. I gave up on trying to get people to go and just went.
5 I bought some high-rent tickets too. $13.75 and we were sitting in the balcony at the CPA, just like the old days. I LOVED it. I hadn’t set foot in the place for years and it was nice dressing a little high-end and going off to the Thea-tuh.
6 My favorite thing was looking down at my shoes. They were so militarily shiny and bold!
7 I didn’t want everyone to know I wanted to look as though I was looking at the audience below, but then I’d sneak a peek at my shoes. Looking down became the order of the night. I could do so without bringing any attention to myself, which is what self-made man does.
8 The funny part is, I have w-i-d-e feet. So I bought those shoes in 11 W, which means they should have been plenty wide. The 11 is the size, and the W means it is w-i-d-e.
9 When i put them on, I felt some villain had tricked me! They cinched, squeezed. Instant pain. Screaming pain.Just add foot. I wanted to murder whoever had labeled that shoe with the W. I tried to put them on using a soup spoon as a shoe horn.
10 Well, of course I bent the spoon.
A scientist examines my
soup spoon this past Saturday.11 Hey Uri, ya listenin’?
This guy is such
a meatball.12 Anyway, time was fleeting, and I had to meet some people and get in before curtain, because the history of AMT is that they’ll keep you out once the performance has started. So I squeezed into my walking torture chambers and was out the door. I was nearly in tears of both pain AND rage. I once read somewhere that tight-fitting shoes could cause madness and insanity.
Some say that tight-fitting
shoes could result in
madness.13 Once I hopped in the TOOOONDRA and revved it up, my feet suddenly felt better.
14 I looked down and the plastic shoelaces had loosened, and the uppers had expanded. I quickly tied them once more, and felt truly that a miracle had just happened.
15 Suddenly, they fit! No more torture! I had visions of writing a Poe-esque story of a guy who attends a play and his shoes hurt so badly that at the end of the first act, he leaps from the balcony to a grand chandelier over the audience, and then, just when his pain and ire overwhelm him, he starts the entire place on fire.
I had visions, as did Poe in
his horror tale Hop-Frog.16 But discretion, they say, is the better half of valor.17 I just said that because it sounds cool.
18 Actually what happened was that my feet felt instantly better once the tops had stretched to fit.19 So no Poe story. Sorry.
20 The thing that I found extraordinary is that later in the night, I looked down and saw that my shoelace had loosened once more, and this time it had come undone!
21 I realized that I couldn’t look like a self-made man if I was to spend the evening tying my shoelaces every five minutes.
22 I had to hope nobody saw the plastic string hanging over one side of my shoe like a drunken castle guard.23 Fortunately, the show had some quieter passages and love ballads, and it was during a love ballad that I discreetly tied my shoe once more.
24 After the show, I kept glancing down at my wonderful new shoes, just to goof on them, and to check the laces. I even thought of this story I had read in third grade, a story about a kid who was so ensconced in his new shoes that he loses his mom downtown because he just keeps walking and watching his feet.
25 Of course a friendly policeman rescues him and he eventually finds his worried mom.
26 But I got out of that daydream when I looked down and they had loosened AGAIN.27 In my head, I’m thinking, “ALL YOU DO IS MAKE SHOELACES!!!! MAKE THEM LACE MY SHOE AND STAY THERE, WILLYA????”
28 But I remained cool. Relaxed. Confident. I just hoped nobody would look down.
29 I tried to buy alternate laces early yesterday morning but those laces are around an eighth of an inch thick, and the holes on the shoe are around the size of a pinhole. The aglets would get through, but the lace would curl and look quite horrid.
30 And my thoughts to Shoelace Design Guy: “THIS IS ALL YOU DO!!!!! ???”
31 But to the world, I put my chin up and walked off into the remainder of the day, cool, relaxed.
32 Do you expect any less from a self-made man?
33 Have a lovely day.34 Peace.~H~
