Cobbler's Catastrophe at Commercial Complex

About two days ago, I decided to check out the new "old" mall along EDSA, North of the Metro. As it were, in compliance with the monsoon season, there was no shortage of rain.

Common sense would probably dictate that one should stay indoors. Among the reasons for doing so is that your feet stay dry and santized vis-a-vis dipping your feet in flood water with generous servings of feces, saliva, micturate, and who-knows-else-what....

But of course, this is me talking....

And thus, armed with an umbrella, I forged on.
Lolo has a word for people like me who choose to go out inspite the heavy rains: earthworms*.

A short, skip and a hop over questionable flowing liquids later, I found myself at the mall - the structure that is almost akin to sanctuary for urbanians such as myself.

All fared well until I felt something different at my feet. I looked down and saw that my left shoe was dangerously close to what would pass for a nervous breakdown.

Had I been in any other place, the situation would have been very difficult.

But lucky me, I was in a mall - and a mall named after shoes, at that!

There were 2 options:

Option 1: Take my poor pair of shoes to the repair shop and wait for it to get fixed while I go barefooted for a good hour or so.

Option 2: Find an "emergency" pair of footwear that I can wear while the tatterred shoes are in repair.

I could have chosen option 1. I mean, people have gone out in public with so much less covering than just a missing pair of shoes. So why was I hesitant to go barefooted? Even now, I still don't know.

To make an already long story longer, I did go for option 2.

The consequence of which was that I had to bear the Curse of the Bargain Hunter, that is, to endure the pain and discomfort of searching the entire mall in a collapsing pair of shoes in search for the best style shoe at the best price.

Not only did I scour every shoe store in the mall, but I also did the round not once, but three, yes THREE, times.

Believe you me, by the second round, all logic had just jumped out the window.

Two agonizing hours later, I made a decision and made one sales girl happy. I guess I looked sorrier than I thought because she made no effort to place the new pair in the box and actually took the old pair and packed them instead. (For that, she meritted a tip.)

Soon after that, a trip to the shoe repair shop. An hour of rehab after, the old pair looked okay. At least it didn't look as if it was begging to be euthanized.

I went home breaking in my new pair. Quite satisfied with my little solo adventure. Sure, my credit card bill's gonna look like heck next month, but hey.... as the saying goes, sometimes girls just wanna have fun.

(* that's because these creatures tend to go out of their earthy homes when it rains. People say it's because the caverns get flooded. But I think it's because they enjoy wet t-shirt contests.)