Dodo Eggs

I’m playing a rough game of pick up basketball in my high school’s gym.  Everyone else has basketball shoes but I don’t play very often so I don’t own a pair of basketball shoes.  Instead, I’m going side to side in my expensive pair of Nike Air Max 180s.  As I commit my fourteenth foul, I hear a short tearing sound coming from my right foot.  Crying out in pain, I fall to my rear cupping my shoe with both hands. 

“Matt!  What’s wrong!  Have you twisted your ankle?”

“Waaaa!”  I’m rocking back and forth running my fingers over the rip.  “I’ve torn my precious shoe!  An ankle will heal but not my all synthetic upper!  Waaaaa!”

“Get off the court moron!”

This horrendous scene occurred in either 1991 or 1992.  I still haven’t thrown those shoes away.  My grandmother took them and found white thread that would match the shoes’ color.  The patch looks a bit overdone (I think she used half a spool.) but her intent was that they not tear again.  Indeed they won’t because I’ll never wear them again!

I made a decision that these shoes were too expensive and too important to me to completely ruin them.  From that moment on every overpriced pair of Nike shoes I bought has been worn to the brink of wearing out before being washed, stuffed, and lovingly set aside (boxes as well). 

Why?  Well, if what I’ve already told you didn’t make sense then look at this peculiarity as a collection.  There’s a small room in my home where I store what I’ve come to call the “Archive.”  At one time, I would give first time guests a quick peek at some of my old shoes, but the response I received wasn’t very gratifying.  The tours have ceased (to my wife’s delight) and now only I spend quality time with my old shoes…reliving memories…enjoying each other’s presence.

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I mourn over only one pair.  It was Nike’s FIRST Air Max called, surprisingly, Air Max Lights.  (Please note: their value on the used shoe market today would have pushed fifteen dollars!  And they said used shoes would never appreciate!)  They were white accented with rust red and a dark off purple.  Remember, these colors were beautiful in the early nineties!

This pair of shoes was tormented by a duo I can only quantify as Tweedle-Dee (my cousin Dustin) and Tweedle-Dumb (my brother Nate). 

Dustin began the festivities by loading up the insoles with onion powder.  A fiendish tactic that sent the stench causing bacteria in my shoe into quantum overdrive.  The Max Lights became so bad Mama Teply banished them to, “Leave outside the front door!” status. 

Only under the weight of my tears did Dustin finally relent and offer up his terrible secret.  The Max Lights were washed but the onion smell was stubborn.  The shoes were tainted and would never be the same.

As terrible as Dustin’s offence was, Nate’s deed was much worse.  It was my turn at the video game council and Nate was examining my cherished shoes with one hand and he had a compass (?!?!?!) in the other.

“Hey Maaaatt, look out!  I might pop your shoes!”  The taunt was designed to distract me and sped the end of my turn with the game.  My brother continued to threaten my shoes until…a brief pfffft and a stupefied expression overtook my brother’s face. 

“Oops, you can have another turn.”

I walked around for another month with a short whistle sound to every other step.  Finally, my grandmother sent them back to Nike and the company graciously replaced them with a second generation Air Max.  The first generations were gone and my shoes could not be replaced.

What will happen to all of my running shoes when I’m gone?  What is the Archive’s final place in history?  I can only assume my descendant’s will open a museum of some sort.  What else could they do with them?

• “Grandma Dollar”
• The Outhouse
• Dustin – Safe Only At A Distance
• …Old…Fashioned
• He’s Not Sane, He’s My Brother