Monday, April 20, 2009

The Dread of Polishing My Shoes

The task of polishing my shoes is right up there with having to change the shower curtain liner.

I DREAD it.

I dread it almost as much as I would if I were having an empacted wisdom tooth pulled using a monkey wrench and a crowbar.

And because I'm one of those people who is very rough on my shoes, they need to be polished after every wear.

I swear to god...after wearing my shoes for only one day, they literally look as though I was using them to tap dance for 16 hours, as one of the Rockettes in Radio City Music Hall.

I have no idea what the hell I do to them that they always look so scuffed and beaten when I take them off at the end of a work day.

When I was a kid, I remember my father teaching me how to properly polish my shoes. He had this wooden box that had a foot rest on top, and it had a cool little compartment inside which stored all the shoe polishing paraphernalia.

(it was a great little place for me to hide my evil sisters tampons)

My dad was extremely anal-retentive about having our shoes always looking PERFECT. Not quite like Joan Crawford...but close. I mean to him, your shoes weren't polished until you could see your reflection in them.

He showed me step by step how to first use the small round brush to apply the shoe polish, and then taking the larger rectangular brush to briskly compound the polish into the leather; after that, he would use the yellow buffing cloth to spit shine them. And for that, I had to put my shoes on my feet and then place them on the foot rest.

Buff-Buff-Buff....Buff-Buff-Buff

Buff-Buff-Buff....Buff-Buff-Buff

OVER and OVER and OVER again.

To this day, whenever I smell shoe polish, I can see my father on his hands and knees at my feet with beads of sweat on his forehead from the aerobic workout he got whenever he polished shoes.

(it was like he just did 60 minutes on a treadmill)

And OY VEY....if he could only see me polishing my shoes NOW.

I use the cheapest shoe polish I can find (preferably at The Dollar Store), and I use an old gym sock to scoop out the shoe polish by placing my hand inside the sock, first. I rub the shoe polish around for exactly 10 seconds and then take the gym sock off my hand, turning it inside out, and then placing my hand back inside. Then I buff the shoes for another 10 seconds....and VIOLA!

I'm done.

And honestly...I know it's not as effective as how my father taught me.

But I don't think I do such a bad job...do you?