When I was about sixteen, I had a pair of school shoes that were really old. They had worn away at the soles, especially on the left hand side because there was a slope in the road I took to walk home from the train station after school.

The heels had big holes in them and were all sunken so I had to adjust the way I walked or I’d tilt backwards a bit. When I was bored I would poke my finger into the holes and make them move like little mouths. One day my left shoe got a rock in the heel through its hole. I got it out but another rock got in about three minutes later so I gave it up as Too Hard and carried on with my life.

One day I was in my school uniform at home and mum asked, “What’s that sound?”, and I said, “Oh, that’s my shoe rock!” She looked really horrified and was like, “We are getting you new shoes NOW. What is wrong with you???” And I was like, “Awww no, I don’t need new shoes, these ones still keep out the rain and (most of) the outside world and that’s all they’re meant to do so it’s fine!” And she looked at me like she was really horrified and baffled about how I turned out this way, like the mothers of gang leaders or Juggalos.

That weekend we had to go buy new shoes, and it was SO BORING and it took like TEN WHOLE MINUTES and it was TOTALLY UNNECESSARY because my old shoes were FINE. I didn’t even mind my shoe rock because it was kind of like a little mate who played percussion everywhere I went.

Last night, Amos made me buy new runners because they have holes in them (not even big enough for a shoe rock!) and have “lost grip”. They are fine. He made me spend like at LEAST six minutes looking at shoes online and having to pick one and THEN pick a colour like I ever look at my own shoes. He acted like he was doing me a FAVOUR making me do this.

Nobody gets me.