Ethel's been on me to get rid of my old running shoes.


                       

All of these shoes are Adidas Supernova (or Supernova Classic, after they came out with the Adidas version of "New Coke") with the exception of the racing flats up near the pillow, and the poor, lone left shoe on the far left, which is a Nike Air Structure Triax from early 1999. The different colors and patterns on the uppers are just marketing; the shoes are pretty much the same. If they weren't, I'd be running in something else these days.

These are the shoes that have managed to avoid Ethel's cunning culling attempts; but when I think of it, I've been averaging almost 2000 miles/year this whole millenium, and I get about 1000 miles on a pair of shoes, so I should have nineteen pairs just since 2000, which means that she's been sneaking some out the back door without asking.

(Of course, there are probably a couple of pairs about the house - I think that there's one in the garage, and there was a pair out on the back porch - these are old running shoes that are now dirty, and thus relegated to being work-in-the-yard shoes, and I have to take them off before I come in the house).

The reason that they are all out on the bed like this is because I finally decided to go ahead and give them to Goodwill.

I mean, the shoes are worn, but they are serviceable - the reason that I don't wear them is because they are worn out from the standpoint of being running shoes (i.e. midsole cushioning gone, or the sole worn in a way that affects my footstrike). And it doesn't make any sense, therefore, for them to be taking up closet space - especially since I have so many non-running shoes, as well, and Ethel can get a little sarcastic about how much room my shoes are taking up (yes, Ethel can get sarcastic. At least, I think that she's being sarcastic - not being sarcastic myself, I have to judge this based on cues that I've learned to pick up over the years, such as the rolling eyes, rocking head motion, and pursed lips).

So I've taken all but my current road pair, my current trail pair (which are the old road shoes - my shoes are in the box, then they are my road shoes for about six months, then my trail shoes for about six months: all totaled, I get about a thousand miles out of each pair, road and trail) and one pair of no-longer-running running shoes that I wear around the house, and put them in a bag for Ethel to take to GoodWill.

However, the shoes are in no actual danger of going to GoodWill, as they are currently in the garage, in the pile with all of the other stuff that's supposed to go to GoodWill; since that pile is Ethel's responsibility, I think that those are the safest items in the house. I could take cash money and go stuff it into empty pockets of the clothes that are in the GoodWill pile, and that money would still be there next year (in fact, it might be a better investment than the stock market, these days) because Ethel is never actually going to take that stuff to GoodWill. That pile exists purely as Ethel's excuse to tell me to get rid of things; but in order for that pile to go to GoodWill, Ethel would have to take it there, and that's not going to happen.

And why do I know this?

There are two reasons:

1) The pile is in the garage, which is the area that I hold sacrosanct - the region in which I demand that everything have a use, and a raison d'etre - thus, in total rebellion, Ethel forces things into the garage just to watch me go apoplectic so that she can count the veins in my necki.
2) The destination is GoodWill, and that's a ten mile driive - and Ethel's not going to go anywhere that far away unless she can spend money there.

I might start storing my NEW shoes in that GoodWill pile, come to think of it.