Flips, flops and zoris

I was cleaning out the truck yesterday and couldn’t help but notice that I had three pairs of shoes along the back floor. That’s one over my official back-floor limit. Ten months of the year I keep my really good hiking boots there, just in case. The second slot is reserved for extra flips, rainboots or plastic garden clogs, depending on the season. In NorCal the weather is, let us say, flexible and you have to be prepared for any eventuality. That is why the back seat of the truck is covered with raincoats, swimsuits, pants and shorts (again, seasonal).

Carrying the extra pair into the house I realized that my shoe collection had slowly mushroomed out of the bedroom into the hall closet, the Good One’s bedroom, the office and the garage. Idly wondering how many pairs I actually owned, I covered my bed with an old sheet and proceeded to gather shoes. Several hundreds of minutes later I was done. It was not a pretty sight. Or a pretty site. It was not pretty, not pretty at all.

Forty-nine pairs.
1 pr extra good hiking boots: most expensive clothing item I own
2 prs goretex sneakers: a must when annual rainfall is measured in feet
1 pr white sneaks for gym: never used IRL: ohhhh, I mean outside gym
3 prs of miscellaneous clogs: including doc martens
3 prs of miscellaneous boots: including semi-expensive cannuck weatherproof ones
8 prs of converse sneakers: chucks are babyboomer wubbies (not the andy m. kind)
1 pr of skater sneaks: rob dyrdek: my bike is too cool for anything else
1 pr of slipper flip-flops: the absolute best for sliding on the wood floor
3 prs of slippers: summer, spring/fall and winter (down sleeping bags for my feet, aaah)
3 prs of ‘good’ walking shoes: the ‘I am not a bumpkin’, go to the city, leather ones
5 prs plastic garden clogs: too embarrassing to even try to rationalize
6 prs dress flips: pathetic compensation for the absence of high-heels
15 prs regular flip-flops: need no explanation