Ever wonder what is in the soles of your shoes? When I was in high school I had a pair of high heels I adored. They were smart, made me look good, and relatively comfortable. Being the extraordinary packrat I am, I kept them. For years. A lot of years.
In the process of dealing with some of the junk around the house I ran across these old shoes. The girl, being almost 11, adores high heels. When she saw them she glommed on. I let her have them.
The first thing she noticed was a stickiness in the soles. I looked them over and found they were evenly sticky, and suspected whatever strange polymer they were originally made of had separated, but wasn’t concerned. Next she noticed how soft they were. I recalled clearly sitting on the bus on the way to a debate meet and poking at them, wondering how something so soft could support my weight, so I didn’t take her comment seriously. Until she pulled one apart.
They had become so soft they could be torn up with our bare fingers. Though I told her to leave them alone, she uncovered a hard black thing in the middle. Being curious, I pulled it apart the rest of the way and found this inside.
Apparently this is the reason I could walk on such soft heels. It’s iron, and reminds me a lot of a screw driver, only bent.
The shoes, alas, are in the garbage where they could just as easily have gone all those years ago. At least my curiosity has been assuaged. And I ended up with this little, metal souvenir.
Have you ever done something so destructive? Do you have any shoes left over from high school? Did you ever wonder if there wasn’t a hunk of metal in there, or what it was like?
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