ME: 8/1/07 Buying shoes

I left my good tennis shoes in Maine when I left back in May. So I had been "making do" in Dallas with a funky pair of Grasshoppers (by Keds) that I had bought several years earlier but had never worn. They were workable and for what I needed to do (pack and purge) they were fine. Until the day I went into the attic…there I sweated so much and crawled around in so much muck that they got pretty icky. I wore them "icky" and all through the estate sale and then put them in the wash Monday morning with the last load of laundry at Marilu. I put them in the back window of the car to dry. Well, what had once fit okay, now fit poorly. I put them on for the hike through Old Stone Fort and they gave me a blister on the side of my foot (what a weird place for a blister). I was not going to be able to wear them the rest of the trip (or probably ever). So I only had 1 pair of casual shoes and they were falling apart.

Since I knew the "good" tennis shoes in Maine weren't exactly the comfiest, I decided this would be a good time to buy new tennis shoes. Betsy was driving up from Atlanta to hang out with us for the day and she wouldn't get there for another hour or so. The girl at the front desk told us about a mall nearby, so we called Betsy and told her to meet us there. We were among the first to get to the mall. Except for mall walkers, the only other people there seemed to be the employees who were opening their stores. We looked at the directory and found 3 possible stores. I decided to let the fates decide on which to pick and we'd go to whichever was closest. Foot Locker was the winner, though it turned out to not be as close as I thought from reading the map. That's okay--it turned out to be the perfect place. I actually got a knowledgeable salesperson that knew shoes and feet and was very honest, letting us know what wasn't exactly the best buy or the best quality. He brought out a selection of shoes, told us about them, and then left us alone while I tried them on. Then he came back to see how it was going and brought out some more. I finally ended up with a pair of Nike's that were very comfortable, much nicer than the "good" ones that I have in Maine. AND they were on sale, which is always a nice feature. AND they are iPod compatible. Of course!! I for sure need the technology-related shoes. ;-) For just $30, I can buy a Nike transmitter that fits in a little place under the liner of the left shoe and a receiver that plugs into the bottom of an iPod. I need to do more research but supposedly, it can match your pace to the pace of the music and it can act as a pedometer. I'm not rushing out to buy the transmitter/receiver technology, but I'm glad to know I'm iPod compatible if I ever decide I want that technology in my life.

Does this foot LOOK happy?? :-)


Inside, it looks like a normal shoe.


But pull back the insole and a tiny compartment is revealed.


Here's more info, if you're really curious about it all:
http://www.apple.com/ipod/nike/gear.html
http://www.apple.com/ipod/nike/run.html
http://www.apple.com/ipod/nike/sync.html