old shoes

Choosing Shoes
by Frida Wolfe

New shoes, new shoes,
Red and pink and blue shoes.
Tell me, what would you choose,
If they'd let us buy?

Buckle shoes, bow shoes,
Pretty pointy-toe shoes,
Strappy, cappy low shoes;
Let's have some to try.

Bright shoes, white shoes,
Dandy-dance-by-night shoes,
Perhaps-a-little-tight shoes,
Like some? So would I.

BUT
Flat shoes, fat shoes,
Stump-along-like-that shoes,
Wipe-them-on-the-mat shoes,
That's the sort they'll buy.

On Monday I dropped a favorite pair of shoes at the shoe repair shop to get them re-heeled for something like to 4th or 5th time. Since I tend to buy relatively expensive shoes, I figure it's worth spending $5 to $10 every now and then to repair the shoes rather than purchase a new pair.

When I first moved here, it usually took about one week for the shoe repair guy to fix my shoes. Now, he estimates it will take about a month. There must have been over 100 pairs of shoes piled up in boxes behind the counter, waiting for repair. He said that it's like this all across the country.

What's changed? The economy. More and more people are opting to repair their existing shoes rather than purchase new ones. I'm not sure why, but seeing the impact on shoe repair shops says a lot more to me than bailout packages and fluctuating gas prices. We will all definitely feel the impact of the larger financial crisis but the evidence of financial hardship in little things like this tell me that people are taking the crisis seriously.

On a lighter note, could I afford to buy many, many more new shoes, I would want one of these (the first one): walk in.