He found three pairs of shoes in the bounty of his original 18 storage units. Oh, he found WAY more shoes than that. Ladies' shoes, new, still in boxes. Some without boxes. Work boots. Most of these he sold to a lady he knows from the auction, for merchandise in her resale store about halfway to the city.
These three pairs I'm
Hick took the picture, so the details I wanted to emphasize are barely visible. Hick washed them three times in my washer. We won't get into that at this time! He used bleach, and then put them in my dryer. So whatever fungi or bacteria or odors that had a happy home there were banished.
The most striking pair is the CALF HIGH CONVERSE. Don't worry about being late from lacing them up every morning. They have a zipper in the back! You can barely see it at the top. The main problem is that the former owner decorated the canvas with artwork. And it looks like maybe she got a signature, though if that's a famous person, I don't know. I didn't look up the name. Maybe it's the name of the former owner. You can't have somebody stealing your CALF HIGH CONVERSE all willy-nilly when you slip out of them for gym class. Because of course these shoes make a fashion statement, and would not be used for athletic purposes.
The GREEN CONVERSE have markings on the toe caps. I don't know if that marker will come off with a solvent, or if it would risk eating away the rubber.
The low white pair is POLO. It has the little polo player symbol on the side. I've never seen anybody wear POLO shoes around here. Didn't even know there was such a thing.
Here's the deal. I think Hick will be able to sell those CALF HIGH CONVERSE. Kids like to be unique, and it's something nobody else has. Hick looked online, and found a resale price of $59 for used, black, CALF HIGH CONVERSE. Of course, they probably weren't written on, either. Hick plans to ask $20 for his pair. I really think he might sell them. That's like birthday money for a middle school kid. $20. And it burns a hole in their pocket while they're thinking of what to buy.
I'm not sure about the GREEN CONVERSE or the POLO. The only school with green as their colors is about 30 miles away, on the banks of the Mississippi. So I doubt their people do much shopping in this area, preferring to head towards the city on the interstate.
Still, if Hick gets anything, it will be money for nothing, because he's already paid off his storage unit purchase. My Tide and Bounce and the household electricity...not so much.
I suspect people who buy used shoes aren't likely to pay top dollar.
ReplyDeleteAny dollar is a profit!
DeleteVal, don't you think you'd look good strutting into the Orb K with those calf high Converse sneaks on? I bet people would drop their pennies as they gawked.
ReplyDeleteIf only they fit me! I'd have the most noticed legs in The Gas Station Chicken Store.
DeleteIf Hick manages to sell them I think you could fairly claim five percent towards the cost of the washer and dryer time. I never buy secondhand shoes. I grew up having to wear my older sister's hand-me-downs and after a while my feet were bigger than hers, but I still had to wear her old shoes until I actually pointed out the size difference, then Dad took a huge pair of kitchen scissors and cut the toe section out of the plastic sandals so I could still wear them and I was ashamed. Dirt poor we were.
ReplyDeleteHick was the middle of three boys. I don't know if he got hand-me-down shoes, but he's said how he stuffed cardboard in them to cover the holes in the sole. On rainy days, he took extra cardboard to school to replace it once he got there. He didn't like walking up the stairs because he was afraid the other kids would see the holes.
DeleteI've taken outgrown shoes from Genius and The Pony to school, to give to kids for their younger siblings. After school, of course, so no other students had to know. They were happy to get them.
Hick and I had similar experiences. I remember my dad cutting up a cardboard egg carton to cover a hole in my shoe. When I crossed my leg and the brat across the aisle shouted I had Grad A Extra large feet, I wanted to kick him.
ReplyDeleteYour self-control was remarkable. You might have hurt him with your Grade A Extra Large feet!
DeleteWe've had kids come to school wearing fuzzy slippers, because they're the only shoes that fit. So we didn't jump to conclusions and rant about the dress code until we'd had a chance to talk to such students privately. Lucky for them, in such modern times, the school social worker was able to find some fitting shoes. If we didn't have the social worker, I'm sure a teacher would have stepped up and made the shoes happen.