Coffee heat rising

Stuff Wears Out…

socks …Obviously. But here’s the question: Why does all Stuff always wear out at the same time?

First, we have the socks. Admittedly, these are not young socks. They came from Costco, among many pairs purchased over the course of several seasons. Though they weren’t all bought at once, interestingly they all fell apart at once!

I darned three pair of them the other day.  This works to extract a few more wearings, but frankly, darning socks is a ditzy chore and not something I feel like doing when I’m tired and can hardly hold my eyes open at the end of a long workday.

Costco  no longer carries women’s socks, leastwise not that I can find. What could they be trying to say to us?

Amazon does, though. And they’re cheap and cute.

I like to wear socks to bed at night, because when it’s cold and the heat is off by way of saving a few pennies, you feel a lot warmer when your feet are warm. They also function as slippers…which may explain the holes in the bottom. 🙂

Here’s something less goddamnably explicable:

redshoeheel

That is the (former) heel of a pair of expensive Clark’s shoes. The heels on both shoes suddenly crumbled apart. I discovered this when I came home from the Christmas Eve songfest services and noticed something that looked like little pieces of charcoal tracked all over the floor.

And I have another pair, exact same design, in black. The heels on those are also beginning to fall apart!

redshoetopThe tops of both pairs are in perfect condition — they look brand-new.

If indeed they were brand-new, I would be absolutely furious. As it develops, this is what we call a “known issue” with Clark’s: consumer after consumer describes  disintegrating heels. Several people say that if you call their consumer service number, they’ll ask you to produce photos and the shoe’s model number and size, in return for which they will send you a new pair of Clark’s.

Thought about that. Then thought…more hassle than it’s worth. These are not new shoes. They’re at least several years old, and between you ‘n’ me, I think the operative term is “a lot of years old.” I don’t even  remember when I bought them, but believe it was during a shopping expedition with my friend VickyC, whereinat we raided a Clark’s outlet in what was then a halfway decent mall on the east side that was just starting to decline.

Said mall is now in full decline, no longer a place where you would feel safe parking and leaving your car or one that harbors stores of much interest. So that gives you a clue to how long it’s been since I bought those two pairs of shoes.

I need a pair of black, presentable flats. My favorite shoe store is having a frenzy of sales. They carry Naots and Mephistos and Pikkolinos, among many other high-quality, attractive pain-frees. Right now they have a sale going until the 31st. I may drive out there today, come to think of it.

Yeah. I probably will. We’re almost done with the current client’s first raft of copy — The Kid has the last two pieces on her end right now. That means…hallelujah, brothers and sisters! No paying work sitting on the desk right this minute.

Absolutely. Get in car. Drive to Tempe. Get shoes. Drive home. Try not to get killed on the way.

🙂

7 thoughts on “Stuff Wears Out…”

  1. Aaaand why are socks so expensive? Some would say I am somewhat “thrifty”. My sock inventory is looking a bit shabby and I have priced socks….over $1 a pair AND UP…I saw some while Xmas shopping for $8….At that price I just as soon “duct-tape” the holes shut. As for the shoes….I would go thru the trouble. I bought a pair of “Sketchers” shoes and after about 3 months these shoes began to literally fall off my feet. In some spots no glue of any sort…And these shoes were around $50. I contacted Sketchers and they requested pics which I provided. A MONTH later I got a replacement pair of shoes and now they’re falling apart. I try to “save” or repair as much as I can in my old age as this is the “green thing” to do AND I’m cheap. Next on the agenda is the 31.5 year old woodstove which is starting to fail….replacement by way of new is $3-4K…..Repair might just be the way to go….

  2. Argh yes! Just this VERY MINUTE i charged up $13.99 (plus tax no shipping thank goodness) to Amazon to for four countem 4 pairs of socks.

    I’m really, really, REALLY picky about shoes. The kind of shoes sold in department stores just don’t fit my feet (don’t ask…I dunno!). Well…Clark’s can be had, but look what happened to the damn things!

    Buying the kind of shoes normal people wear led to a roaring case of plantar fascitis that took over 6 months of pain (some of it pretty exquisite) to get over. So…yeah. I’ll pony up the money for Naots and Mephistos and Sanitas and Pikkolinos or whatEVER that won’t wreck the feet and the back.

    31.5 years, eh. DARE ONE SAY…???? Dare one say “betcha they don’t make ’em like that anymore!”

    BTW, I think Sanitas makes a clog-like affair for men — they may have other, even more manly styles. These will NOT fall apart in a month. Or even a year.

    Have you tried Merrills?

  3. Funny…. I truly think you are out of my “league”….I’m a landlord and worse yet a DIY landlord….so my shoes take some wear which is why I stay away from the Walmart foot wear and go with name brands. I have seen Sketchers on many a nurses foot and thought they must be good….not so much. But I’m with ya on socks…ridiculous… even those little half socks for summer…crazy prices. I have warm memories of my “dear grandfather on my Mom’s side” sitting in his chair, watching a TV program and darning his own socks in the evening. He had a wooden thing that he would use so the repair was rounded…..pretty slick. And while we are whining about $….While visiting over the Holidays…it came to my attention that some of DW’s folks have lost their mind. They have “cable/FIOS bills” over $205…A….MONTH….I felt faint. Is this the norm?

    • You know…I’m prob’ly not the one to ask whether these shenanigans are the norm, because I also think it’s insane to have to spend this kind of money on shoes or a pair of socks. Or effing TELEVISION?????:

      Yeah, I’m afraid that IS the norm. Check this out: http://fortune.com/2016/09/23/average-cable-tv-bill/ That’s over a hundred bucks a month JUST FOR TELEVISION. I don’t known what FOIS means…fiber-optic intersite system??? Maybe it includes their wireless or internet connection? My wireless connection is $60+ a month. If you added TV to it, it probably WOULD be pushing a couple hundred bucks a month.

      That’s just insane. TV access should be free. The citizens OWN THE EFFING AIR WAVES. That means they’re OURS. We shouldn’t have to pay ANYTHING to view a TV show. Or even a football game broadcast over the TV waves.

      I refuse to be ripped off like that, and so I don’t have television. I get as much “entertainment” as I can tolerate from the Internet, which I can make tax-deductible because I use it for my business.

      Also, bizarrely enough, I can read. You know…like books? magazines? Even if you pay $20 or $30 for a book, that’s nothing like two hundred bucks to watch moving pictures in your living room.

      Shoes: I buy a pair every two or five years. And I DO expect a pair of extravagantly brain-bangingly pricey shoes a) to be 100% pain-free and b) to last five or six years, at least. By and large they do. The brands that last that long are Sanitas (the original makers of Dansko — Sanitas sold Dansko, which was immediately off-shored from Scandinavia to China, with the result that Dansko shoes no longer fit properly and don’t last very long), Naot, and Mephisto. There may be others, but I haven’t found them. Clarks used to be very good shoes, but apparently they’ve gone the way of all the other off-shored products. Merrills used to be excellent, for men as well as for women…I haven’t seen a pair in years.

      If a $200 pair of shoes lasts five or six years, then I’ve paid $33 to $40 a year for that pair of shoes. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. Do I appreciate having to shell out a queen’s ransom up front for a pair of shoes? Hell no!

      But back in the day when a good pair of shoes cost $20 to $40, you expected to replace them within a year or 18 months. And women’s feet HURT. All. the. time. If you complained, you were told that “beauty knows no pain.”

      Nurses, BTW, earn enough that they can afford to buy new shoes every few months. The Skechers may be…uhm…revolving shoes. 😀

      Hmmmm….. Also, BTW, the Skechers sold on Amazon may be knockoffs: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R26YOZRVVKCF6N/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewpnt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B005GI8UZ8#R26YOZRVVKCF6N

      Possibly this is true of other retailers???

      You can use a baseball, a softball, or a hard rubber ball as a device to help with darning socks. Just drop it inside the sock and it will hold the fabric in the desired shape while you reweave the sock over the hole.

  4. And to bring this “full circle”…DD2 JUST bought a pair of Dansko’s…..aaaaand she loves them. She bought them at a REAL shoe store where they actually measured her feet and fitted her. They were like $125-150….and she says they feel GREAT. IMHO then they are worth every cent. As for the 31.5 year old woodstove….it has been a wonderful device and has saved us a ton of cash. I paid over $850 back then(which was a lot of money) and this thing is HEAVY the biggest they made at the time. I replaced the fans last year. And if I can come up with a fix for the hinge pins, she should go another 30 years. It is a Treemont and of course they have went out of business and their line was absorbed by Harman. It appears the folks at Harman have no desire to offer a hinge assembly as they want to sell me a new stove ….for $4-5K….

  5. I’m pretty much on a first name basis with the folks at A-1 and Hearthstone….Pretty sure I got my replacement fans from Hearthstone. Though I could/will benefit from new hinge pins….the real “challenge” is in my “oblong/egged out” holes on the stove that receives the pins. The door is cast iron and those holes show very little wear. But the door hinge receivers are steel and actually appear to be “sacrificial” as this assembly bolts onto the body of the stove with grade 5 bolts. Really, some thought went into this stove and it’s design. It was rated at 72% efficient when I bought it over 30 years ago. The new modern stoves that go for $3-4-5K only have ratings of 72 to 78% and the materials leave a bit to be desired. New hinge assembly and she is good for another 30 years.

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