I'm tired, cold and crabby tonight. Because I don't want to piss and moan about all that, I figure I'll tell you a story from my childhood. Most of these stories have lingering trauma associated with them, though in a very mild form. I'm looking forward to traumatizing my own children one of these days.
I was born and raised in the town of Garden Valley, which is about 40 miles north east of Boise. It took about an hour to get to the big city, and because my dad was a real estate developer, he often had to go to town for escrow closings and such.
Dad's meetings usually happened during the week, while my little brother and I were at school. Because no one wanted to waste the gasoline of another 80 mile round trip on a weekend, Dad often picked up basic groceries and other necessities while he was out.
One day, it was decided I needed new school shoes. That morning, my dad had me stand on a brown paper sack, and he traced the outline of my feet on the paper. That night, he came home in a very excited mood because he had scored me two years' worth of shoes on sale at KMart. (I didn't care--I was ten years old.) However, he handed me the sack and I found...drumroll...two pairs of MacGregor rubber-cleated golfing shoes in my current size, plus a second pair in the next size up. My fifth grade class photo shows me sitting in the front row with my golf cleats on conspicuous display.
I like to tell my husband that this is the reason I must buy nice, new shoes as often as possible.