THE Shoes

What jobs have you had?

Yesterday I mentioned a pair of shoes that I bought, and how they are a serious blast from the past and how I had to get them. I’m going to work some magic right now. I’m going to turn the question today into an opportunity to talk about these shoes.

Just watch, I can do it…

So I have spent the past year recounting the horrors of the job I had teaching in and being the principal of a stifling Catholic school. That’s one job.

Go back farther and I spent a very interesting final year of high school working at Dairy Queen. In fact, I wrote about that too (Did I ever tell you…(part 3).

Before I had any job, my primary job was being a student. As cheesy as that sounds, parents really tell their kids that. I’ve been a teacher, multiple parents have said to their kids over the years, I’ve heard them.

With that said, my “primary” job as a student came in the 90s. I was in high school from 1996-2000. As is the case in every generation of young people, there were cliques. The clique I remember the most were the “preps”. The preppy popular kids. They wore the latest fashions and partied, and generally thought high school was the best thing ever. I didn’t like them. Well, almost all of them. I was super madly in love with one male “prep”. In my journals, I called him an “untouchable” because there was no way I would ever be his girlfriend. So, I crushed on him from afar for all four years. I’m friends with him on Facebook now. Ironically, he’s married to a woman named Sarah. Also interestingly, I’m friends with another prep. She was one of those cheerleaders and just as untouchable. But she’s actually a really cool lady. She and I have chatted back and forth quite a bit lately. Fun fact, she’s the reason I know what the Only Fans website is. When I came across her profile on Facebook, I saw a link to Only Fans on her profile. I clicked on it because I didn’t know what that was. I do now! One day I’d like to ask her about that. Apparently she doesn’t do that anymore. No judgement. It was probably good money.

Anyway, I wasn’t a prep. Maybe I could have been. But I didn’t want to. I don’t even know why. They just seemed really stuck up. I didn’t even like that LFO song, “Summer Girls” because of the line that goes, “I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch”. Preps wore Abercrombie and Fitch. To be fair, I had two Abercrombie shirts my senior year that my sisters bought me. The logo faded off the front after a few washes, so it was just a shirt after that.

The preps also wore particular Adidas shoes. I swear they all did. I scoured the yearbook from my senior year and found exactly one picture of someone wearing them:

I don’t know what the guy on the left is wearing, but it’s the shoes on the girl on the right that I’m talking about. Everybody had those. I rolled my eyes every time I saw them, I swear I did. I’m sure I could have probably convinced my parents to get me a pair. I’m fairly certain of it. But I was sort of anti-trend. I didn’t want to wear what all of the preps were wearing. This could be analyzed even more, I’m sure. Why did I dislike them so much? I don’t know.

But I do know that I have seen these shoes make a comeback. When I went with my husband to Dick’s this past weekend (he was looking at fishing lures, I was looking at everything else), I saw them. All kinds of colors. Some with the three stripes in shiny leather and some with a furry patch around the logo on the back of the heel.

I can’t explain it but when I decided that I needed a pair of comfortable shoes to wear to work this summer, I thought of those and I had to get a pair. My first pair. Twenty five years after I last saw them and hated them.

Behold…

I didn’t get the ones with the shiny, leather stripes. Nor did I get the ones with the faux fur on the heel. I got the basic ones. Plain black. Because black goes with anything. If I need to wear shoes that match tan or brown, I’ll wear my khaki colored Hey Dude shoes.

I haven’t actually worn these yet. I need to get some super low ankle socks first. But I did try them on and my feet sighed with contentment.

I will put them on Monday and wear them to work. Not high school. As an adult. Not a teenager. But I guarantee there will be a feeling of nostalgia nonetheless. Or maybe not nostalgia. Maybe some sort of smug satisfaction. I got through high school without conforming to the standards set by the preps. I didn’t try to copy them in what I wore. I’m wearing these shoes now because…actually…I don’t know why. I never had a pair and now I do, so there! 🙂