The Tale of the 97 Cent Shoes

I'm not one for shopping malls.

But this weekend Essie and I spent a quality weekend in the big city together as a little get away... Call it an early Valentines to each other... And of course in the spirit of fairness, I was dragged invited to one of the larger malls in Des Moines. Now, I have to admit. I am not a mall person. I don't know if it's the pretention, or the bright lights, or the jacked up prices... Or the current lack of a good toy store... But I start to get figedty about 10-12 steps into the process of mall shopping. This day was no exception.

So... I was trying my best to be the good boyfriend and even spent some quality time with the little lady as she rummaged through the panty bin at Victoria's Secret. About that time she suggested that we split up... I'm sure my heavy sighing was a dead give away that I'd rather be anywhere else... So at her advice, I wandered off and found a sporting goods store that had some cool Cubs jerseys in the windows, and a few assorted NFL jerseys. I wandered in hoping to find a section of hockey jerseys, or even hockey t-shirts, but was told by the sales clerk that they do not carry hockey clothing "anymore because it just sat on the shelf, so it was shipped back to the warehouse." I told him that it would probably sell quite nicely in a clearance rack, but whatever, I'd look around at the cool Cubs jerseys I saw when I walked in. Well I lost interest rather quickly when I saw that the t-shirt style jerseys started at about 45 bucks.

I'm sure at that point I let out a heavy sigh.

Eventually I found Essie... The cell phone signal was blocked within the walls of the mall, so that in itself was a chore. After searching for her for 45 minutes walking up and down the corridors, I finally found her at a point I had already walked past about three or four times. She said she had been there for long time, and I had never passed her. I thought about arguing with her, but decided against it. I was just happy that she seemed to be done shopping and that we could get out of this surrealistic cartoon world. We started for the door.

"You never bought anything" she said to me. I noticed she was carrying two or three bags.

"Well," I said, "I didn't really find anything that I needed, or wanted to pay an arm or a leg for."

She said, "You should go to Old Navy... Thay have great stuff there, and the clothes are your style. We should check it out." I had never been to Old Navy before, but had seen the shirts and jackets with it's logo brightly advertised on the front. About 110% sure that I wouldn't find "my style" of clothes in there, I followed Essie in. She was already walking through the door...

I wandered to the mens' section and did find some cargo shorts I liked that should have been a hell of a lot cheaper than $35.00. Afterall, it was 12 degrees outside with about 3 feet of snow on the ground. Again it seemed like a great clearance rack item.

Suddenly I saw them. In a bin of folded khakis there was this simple pair of shoes... Skating loafers... The ones you slip on without the worry of shoe laces... Generally the most comfortable of all shoes. The tragedy about this style of shoe is that most pairs are incessantly ugly. The pair in this bin of khakis however was not ugly. In fact they were cool. And they definitely seemed to be my style.

I walked over and picked them up. I was instantly shocked. They must have been carried from a clearance rack because the price on the tag had obviously been lowered with a pricing gun. The orange tag connected to the shoe said 97 cents. I couldn't believe it, and was even more blown away when I saw that it was a size 9... The size I wear. I found a clerk and asked her if this was indeed the price of the shoe, and she said yes. She also said that it was the last pair in the store.

It was fate... Or maybe my destiny... But I bought that pair of shoes at the mall at the Old Navy store. Essie led me to the promised land... And I suddenly wasn't so upset about being in the mall anymore. We went out that night to see some local music and I wore the shoes.

...And I must say, I rocked them. I looked cool as hell.