Well, I woke up to a rather pleasant surprise on Monday. 3 packages were waiting for me on my front doorstep, including my replacement sandals! It's strange to be so excited about something that I already owned before, but I think it's still a big deal. Temperatures here have started getting into the comfortable sandal-weather season and I was tiring of my old Teva's.
I once discussed this with my buddy Blink when we first moved down here. Teva's have this interesting phenomenon where they will just absolutely reek if you wear them for maybe 2 days in a row during a hot summer. Presumably some combination of the rubber used in the footbed and the general nastiness of sweaty feet in a hot Texas summer. We used to wear them to work for those long days in the 100 degree weather and it wasn't a pretty site. While I would alternate my footwear to minimize the size of the putrid cloud, he kept to the same pair. At some point, a bunch of us had to shoo him out of the office, because his feet stank up the place! Add this to the list or random crap that I remember.
While I often associate word of mouth with restaurants and stores, I don't generally think of it as a way to buy shoes. Everyone's physiology, tastes in fashion, and whatnot typically don't intersect. Remarkably, these were passed on to me by a former co-worker (soon to be co-worker again) and later passed on to another co-worker of mine who was looking for a comfortable pair of sandals. While I can often be a slave to fashion, these are a perfect testament to function over form. I guess I'll have to buy a second pair of sandals for "slightly more dressy" occasions, but that's the price I'm willing to pay.
