Today, I did something unbelievably stupid: I wore new shoes. While this by itself isn't terribly stupid, what is stupid is wearing a new pair of shoes on a day you will be doing a lot of walking. Which for me is everyday. So, wearing new shoes was a bit of a bad move. Which resulted in an interesting day.
1. The shoes
I got a box in the mail from home yesterday. Within: a new pair of shorts (yay!) and a new pair of shoes. The shoes were somewhat unexpected; my mom bought them for me because she thought I'd like them, and I do. They are white canvas, sort of a cross between a sneaker and a ballet flat. Comfortable sneaker footbed, cute ballet flat scoop. What's not to love?
2. The walk
I walk to class everyday. It takes around 15 minutes for me to get from my dorm to class. While ASU is, to me anyway, an enormous campus, this is roughly equivalent to me walking from my Scripps dorm to my computer science class at the north end of Pomona. Except for the heat, it's rather a nice walk. After class, I walk to the student union to grab lunch. This takes about 10 minutes if I'm going slowly, which I tend to be. After lunch, I walk back to my dorm, another 10 minutes or so. Significant walking? Not really, but it's not exactly short either.
3. The problem
So, walking to class in new shoes. After about the first hundred feet or so, I noticed that the shoes were rubbing on the back of my heel. After another hundred feet, that rubbing was starting to get painful. Unfortunately, I had to keep going in order to get to class on time. When I sat down in class, I pulled my shoes off; I already had blisters the size of quarters on the back of both heels. During my break, I stuffed some toilet paper in the heel of my shoes in an attempt to cushion them. It didn't work. The toilet paper just ended up stuffed under my foot.
4. The walk again
So here I am in class with blisters, and I need to walk to lunch and then back to my room. I figured the walk to the student union wouldn't be too awful if I walked briskly, instead of strolling as I usually did. I was wrong. Sitting down to eat was fantastic, it meant I didn't have to walk. After lunch, with the prospect of another walk ahead of me, I did the logical thing: took my shoes off and started walking back barefoot. What could possibly go wrong?
5. And you thought this would be obvious.
New thing I learned today: if the air is hot, the ground is probably hot too. Being the swarthy Alaskan I am (who am I kidding?), I like walking around barefoot. In the summer, I don't put on shoes unless I have too. Like, for example, when it's 70 degrees outside and the back deck is too hot to walk on. Clearly, I should have realized that when it's 100 degrees outside, the ground would be even hotter. Nah. And so, half way down a flight of outdoor stairs, I start hopping up and down like a crazy person and rush to the modest shade provided by a trash can. The bottoms of my feet (under a healthy layer of dirt) were bright pink, bordering on red. I had just successfully burned the bottoms of my feet on pavement.
6. The walk, continued
Big 'ole blisters, check. Burned feet, check. A decent walk back to my room, check. And so, I folded down the back of my new shoes and wore them like slides, shuffling home. It hurt.
7. The conclusion
Did I do something extremely stupid today? Why yes, yes I did. Did I learn my lesson? I sure as heck hope so.
Armed with neosporin, band aids, and thick socks, I have mostly solved the problems I caused today. Do my feet still hurt? Absolutely, but it's my own fault. The exciting bit will be walking to class tomorrow. I can tell you one thing: I won't be wearing my new shoes.
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