Losing A Sole

Being thrifty is a relative thing.

Like, I'm pretty thrifty. I recycle, I reuse plastic bags, I've been known to wander yard sales and thrift stores for bargains, and I don't own a lot of big gawdy jewelry or designer clothes. I've made birdhouses out of plastic pop bottles. Well, one, anyway. I have other birdhouses, too. Probably too many around here. We are switching to something called "chicken scratch" instead of bird seed because it is getting expensive to feed the birds, and that certainly is not being thrifty. Day old bread torn up and thrown outside would be the thriftiest choice, but I digress.

I pitch things or donate things I don't need. And I don't ask for a receipt either. To me that is not really "giving" just to give. I just give because I'd rather someone be using it than it taking up space here.

But on a scale of thriftiness I'm not, say, an extreme coupon clipper or someone who buys 10 of something to get a deal. I do own about eight pairs of tennis shoes but they have been justified (at least till now) as too good to throw away but something no one would want. I could "garden" in them or do really dirty jobs where you get muddy, and throw them away if they get too bad. Besides I have two other "good" pairs to wear in public. Muddy jobs have been few and far between for a few years. I'll be ready though.

Talking to neighbor Al today I got a better picture of where I stand on the scale of thriftiness. Al was wearing his "good" tennis shoes (I can relate) and mentioned that one of his other pairs (gardening type) lost a sole.

Huh? How do you lose a sole? I pondered the Zen-ness of this for a moment and then kept listening. Yeah, one day he was walking, and it caught on something or another and the sole got separated from the shoe. Just like that.

My first thought was, I wonder if they were made in China, but instead I said, well, you threw them away right? No.... the shoe part is still good, he said. But it felt too strange to wear them with one sole on and one without, so he ripped the sole off the other one and still wears them as "garden" shoes.

Mom suggested he wrap them back onto the shoes with furnace tape. I'm not even sure what furnace tape is, but I know she was kidding him.

Can you keep your sole by wrapping it with furnace tape? Zen again...

I glanced up at him.

For a split second, I think he considered it.