The most memorable example in my history was when I was in eighth grade. It was around the turn of the millennium, when every middle school boy who was “cool” owned a pair of skate shoes, regardless of whether or not he actually owned a board. At least in my view it seemed that way. I desperately wanted to be cool, and I saw skate shoes as my ticket to the good life of being invited to video game parties, being in on in-jokes, and extensive communication rights with eighth-grade girls. But first, I had to convince my mom that I actually needed the shoes.
American skate shoes -they had to be Vans, in my case- were usually imported to Japan and, as a result, were not cheap. Up until then the most my mom had ever spent on shoes for me was ¥7110, for my first pair of ASICS soccer cleats. A pair of Vans typically went for ¥9500+, so clearly I had a lot of begging and pleading to do.
After a lot of searching and plenty of skeptical looks from my mom, I succeeded in convincing her to purchase me a pair of uni-sex Vans for ¥7800. I nearly died of anticipation over the weekend because I couldn’t wait to wear my new Vans to school the next Monday.
I strolled into first period like I had just stepped out of a Rolls at the curb, cooly deposited myself into a seat in the back of the room. I sat there with a huge grin on my face, and everything was good until Andrew turned around and saw me. Andrew wore skate shoes AND actually skated, and to me was the epitome of eighth grade “cool”. He had already pretty much reached his adult size by seventh grade, excelled in sports, and had no shortage of girls who wanted to talk to him. He took one look at my Vans and snickered, “Hey, you know those are girls shoes, right?”
“No they’re not,” I retorted, “They’re both.”
He looked at me like I had just told him that Thailand was in Europe.
“No dude, they’re girls shoes. You’re wearing girl shoes.”
And then he laughed. I shrunk down in my chair, completely mortified. Regardless of whether or not they actually were “girl shoes,” the fact that who I thought was the coolest guy in my class thought that they were girl shoes meant that they were. And if I continued to wear them, everyone else would soon also know that I wore girl shoes. I was wearing girl shoes. My weekend quest to find the perfect shoes had resulted in girl shoes.
I walked around school for the rest of they day wishing that I wouldn’t walk. Wishing that I could innocently tread over a land mine that some malicious soul had placed under the hallway carpet. At least if I was in a wheelchair, I wouldn’t have to worry about people making fun of my shoes.
The school day couldn’t seem to end soon enough. As soon as the last bell rang I sprinted home -a twenty-second dash, as I lived in the school dorm at the time- to change back in to my familiar, worn Wal-Mart sneakers. The Vans were thrown on shelf and sat there for most of the year, shunned during my attempt to slowly recover from the psychological loss. After all, they were the most expensive shoes I owned! I couldn’t just get rid of them!
I finally screwed up enough courage to part with them and gave them to a girl who was a year younger than me who also lived in the dorm. To this day I haven’t bought a pair of shoes that were even close to the price of those Vans.
So what about you, dear reader? Do you have any such stories in which you held onto something expensive that you never used out of fear of the guilt that you would feel of you ever did get rid of it? Did you eventually do so? Or do you still own it? I want to hear your stories!
_DZ
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