NEEDLING

BUYING MYSELF MORNING CHOICES

The last days of the winter sales are definitely here. I just got my paycheck. The first paycheck for a full month's worth of work I've received in a few years. I'm no millionaire, not even close. The total amount of my paycheck barely ads up to twice the amount of the welfare package. Which makes me either: 1) A moron, I could find undeclared half-time employment and make the same amount; 2) A good citizen who wants to EARN his living, not just live off the system; 3) An unlucky fool incapable of finding a descent job either declared or not.

Since I need new shoes, I naturally headed to rue de Rivoli where I know there's a few places where one can purchase shoes. I entered several stores. Last season's stocks are getting packed off in boxes. All that's left is leaving. What didn't sell, not even at ridiculously low prices. All the shoe-store employees are running around trying to set up the new lines in the windows and pack as little of the old ones back to the factories. Customers aren't really buying anymore so they have to pack more than they'd rather pack.

I was trying on different pairs of shoes in this one store as I was watching this one triangular faced skinny employee standing right next to where I was asking him a question. He acted as if I wasn't in the store trying on several pairs of shoes. He was ignoring me completely. He was busy packing boxes, running in and out of the storage area, taking shoes from the shelves, putting different shoes on the shelves, that kind of stuff. I was asking him something important about shoe size and its relevance to my feet. At the same time I was wondering what happens to all these unwanted shoes. Where do they all go? Are they burnt, used as energy, as combustibles? Can unwanted but unused shoes be used as fuel? Are they sent to poor countries or communities, places where they can't afford to buy new shoes? Are they stacked in some warehouse, locked in controlled environment, to be brought back in twenty years as the latest NEW style? Are they buried in large holes with dead corpses to confuse future generations of archeologists? Can you use them to fortify house walls made of cow-dung, grass and car tires?

The left foot was fine, but the right foot was too tight. I wear 43 and 1/2 I think because the 43's were too small and the 44's were too big. Sometimes the 43's were good for my left foot and the 44's were good for my right foot. But they wouldn't hear of it. They have to sell two 43's or two 44's, not one of each.

In another shop, the store attendant, a woman this time, just looked at me and said matter of factly: "The right foot is always a little bigger than the left foot." As if this was a perfectly known fact and that I was a complete moron for not being aware of it. Then she went back to another less demanding customer. Everybody in the world has a bigger right foot? That's incredible. That could make for a good study. Are there exceptions where some people have a bigger left foot?

By the time I had tried on, walked around with, and gruntingly taken back off half a dozen or so pairs of shoes in each store, I called it quits. I had given up on the idea of buying new shoes. I dropped in on K. She owns a fashion store in the neighborhood where she sells her own line of clothing. R. is working, she says, at his new job. H., their son, is doing fine. Late afternoon and she was barely opening the store! She was sleepwalking. We talked briefly and decided we should do a diner soon. There was something about shrimps stuffed in something or other, but I can't remember what.

I headed off and stuck to window-shopping. Not wanting to take off my old shoes in front of yet another pimpled snotty employee. Though I did get a small pleasure in showing off my dirty stinky socks. I walked slowly towards Bastille, figuring on walking home since it was such a spring-like day when suddenly, an advertisement spoke to me: Buy two pairs, get the third one for 1 Euro.

I walked in. The store attendants treated me kindly and right away I knew they were different. They had the right mix of leaving me alone and asking me how things were going. I stayed in there for ages trying on most the shoes in sizes 43 and 44 which were still on sale. I ended up buying two pairs of shoes size 44 and one pair size 43.

At one point I looked at the young woman who was attending to my shoe buying needs and asked her after I had made my first choice, the one size 43 pair, "I'd love to have these," talking about a model they only had in 43's, "but they're too small."

"What size are they?"
"43's."
"The ones you just picked are 43's?"
"Yes, I know, that's what I'm saying..."
"Then..." she started on an argumentative tone... and quickly cut herself off.

She gave me a large beautiful smile and said, "that's really strange," without a single hint of irony. She walked away to straighten out some shoe boxes and disappeared in the employee-only shelter. I really appreciated the fact that she wasn't sarcastic with me. Those 43's WERE smaller than the ones I had just picked. I know I'm not crazy. After that she came every ten minutes or so to give me a nice smile and ask me if everything was ok. I made sure to always put the shoes back in the boxes, and the boxes back where I had found them.

All this to say that now I own three pairs of shoes, that I paid a low price - a little less than what one pair of shoes would have cost me normally - and that I don't think I've ever owned three new pairs of shoes at the same time in my entire life!

At 9h00 this morning, after having been out of bed since 7h00, I couldn't decide which pair to put on. There they were at the foot of my bed lined up with the old ones that I haven't thrown away yet. So I have FOUR pairs to choose from. That's a hell of a way to start the day. Used to, I didn't have to think about it. I woke up, took a shit, brushed my teeth, drank my coffee/ chicoree, checked my emails while eating my toast, and as I walked out the door, without thinking about it and hardly looking down at my feet, I inserted my left foot then my right foot into the ONLY pair of shoes available.

How life changes when one has a job. I now have a choice. I can now be a hotel slave in four different styles of shoe-wear.