On Saturday, I ordered some shoes.
On Monday, the box arrived.
It’s Tuesday, and I have not opened the box.
I have shoe issues, people. I’m a vegetarian who tries REALLY hard to avoid buying leather, and my feet attempt to rip themselves to shreds when they come into contact with 99% of all shoes in existence. This combination limits my options. I actually bought three pairs of leather shoes a couple of years ago, out of desperation, because I needed to go to work and I walked a lot in between the bus and the office – and I could not find anything else to wear. One pair never stopped making me bleed every time I wore them, even with bandaids, but the other two were workable. Both of those pairs of shoes are now desperately in need of a trip to the shoe hospital, but I fear one pair – the closed toed pair, will be declared beyond help. That happens when you go through an entire winter (or two) with only one pair of shoes that you wear every day.
Now that I am doing the work at home thang, I don’t need dressy shoes for our couple of months of winter, but I do need something. I went to quite a few stores to see what they had, and came up with nada. I long ago swore off buying shoes online, after many returns to various vegetarian shoe companies, but my lack of desire to be depressed by finding nothing in additional retail stores led me to try out Zappos. They have a vegetarian search option, which I have used twice already to buy shoes for Boy Detective. I wasn’t exactly excited about my choices, but I did find one disgustingly crunchy-granola-compliant pair that might work. By “work” I mean “not offend me terribly.” Please do not think that I said or felt anything like “wow, cute!” They’re just… fine.
And hey, they showed up at my house before I even got the tracking number.
I’m not opening the box, though.
If I open the box, I will find out what I already know to be true. This online shoe shopping experience will have netted me exactly the same number of pairs of shoes as all my previous ones put together, which is to say zero. (Unless you count the purple velvet mary jane slippers I wore with my wedding dress. Perhaps this is where my shoe karma got used up?)
If I don’t open the box, then there is still a possibility I might have a usable pair of winter shoes soon.
I think I can keep this up until about 3 days before the return window closes, at which point the possibility of paying $55 for a box on my kitchen table will force me to act.
We have exactly the same feet issues. Shoes are the one exception I make to leather apparel though because I hate to sweat in plasticy shoes. I did find some great “Vegan” hiking boots through Garmont, though.
I can hike forever with my legs, but my feet are generally shredded by mile 3. I use those Dr. Scholls blister pads (the expensive ones) by the boxload and they really help.
I have some shoes that I just never make friends with. They shred me each and every time, and they must go away. The problem is you can’t return worn shoes, and it usually takes at least half a mile for the problem to become apparent.
It sounds like you’ve got Schrodenger’s shoe box there.