These Shoes Were Made For... Tossin'?

I have this little ritual, or... rite of passage that occurs every couple of years. I get a new pair of walking shoes. This year Michael gave me my new walking shoes for Mother's Day. The shoes in the picture above were my last pair of walking shoes (click here if you'd like to read about me and "them" in a 5-K race). When I get new walking shoes, my old shoes take on a new role... they become my "wait-at-the-back-door-shoes" which means, that they are always there waiting for me when I'm leaving for work, or, when I have to run a quick errand to the grocery store, or if someone comes over and I have to quickly hide my bare feet (sorry, that's another story... and you're never going to read it). They actually become very useful shoes for me.

Last Saturday Mike and I went on a drive with our friends Steve and Becky. It was a beautiful day. We listened to conference as we drove, Steve had a little snooze... or two; Mike drove, and me and Becky visited (while we listened attentively to the first session of conference).
We stopped at a campground in the mountains to enjoy a picnic lunch consisting of Leger's sandwiches (have you tried that deli? A.MA.ZING).

After lunch we walked along a designated trail (and I emphasize DESIGNATED) to the restroom; which was closed. So we headed back down the trail and got into the car to go home. Even as we were just starting to drive through the campground to the exit, I detected an offensive, really offensive smell... and it was ME!! Well, not really me, but on me. Nobody else seemed to have noticed it. "I think it's on my shoe!" I said, as I lifted first one foot and then the other. Sure enough, there it was on the sole of my left foot. Ooooohhhh, aaarrrggghhhhh, sick, gross!!!! times a ga-zillion!!!! "I'm throwing these shoes away, where's the garbage!?!" I proclaimed without any hesitation. Now everyone was noticing the smell (smell is a generous word here), I mean STINK!!!! There were no trash receptacles in this campground, so Mike pulled the car over and threw the offensive shoes into the shrubs, and I was left with nothing but socks to cover my feet (click here to read Becky's blog post and see photographic proof).

Now you might ask, why didn't you just clean your shoes off? well... I didn't want to. They are my old shoes, they've done their time, paid their dues... but on Monday morning when I was leaving for work and went to put my shoes on... they weren't there. Oh dear, I forgot; now I was going to have to wear my new walking shoes to work, and if you know me very well at all, you know that I didn't want to do that, 'cause... they are for walking in, not working in.

So here's a little advice if you are going to the mountains and you don't want to end up wearing your walking shoes to work: wear your oldest shoes and stay off the trails... 'cause apparently they are only for dogs; and always, always wear your socks, especially if you don't want to go bare foot when your shoes are in the shrubs... and that's still the story that you're never going to read.