One of the Christmas gifts I opened up last month from my husband was a pair of yellow Crocs. Usually I’m pretty grateful for the presents I receive from family and friends, but these lightweight, multi-hole foot coverings were an exception.
For starters, bright yellow footwear resembling Swiss cheese is disturbing enough, but they looked huge on my feet – I felt like Fred Flintstone walking around the house wearing them. I even tripped while stepping over an old rug in the hallway.
With a smile on his face my husband asked, “Are they comfortable?” while my cheek was swelling and lip bleeding from my tumble moments earlier.
Rather than bury them in the ground, never to be donned again, I found a way to repurpose my gaudy shoes regardless of their popularity within the foot attire world.
I made myself a fabulous little lantern with one of them by shoving a battery-operated string of lights into the shoe. It really came in handy with the recent power outage, and the shoe’s heel strap made it fun to carry my light around.
When the giver of my shoe gift was frustrated the other day by the fact we don’t have sprinklers in our yard, and he needed one particular area watered, I threw one of my Crocs out of the second-floor kitchen window and told him to hammer a metal stake through it, then lay his high-pressure garden hose inside of it. The holes on top of the shoe distributed the water a tad bit like a sprinkler. The shoe with its lightweight design bounced off his head with ease before landing on the ground, so that worked out well, too.
My ugly Crocs were becoming fun to use as a substitute for things I needed but didn’t have.
When my neighbor asked if I had a noodle strainer she could borrow for her penne pasta dinner, as she couldn’t find hers, I said, “Sure,” while handing her one of my shoes. The water drained out of the holes, leaving the pasta neatly in the toe box of the Croc. You know how ya feel when you brainstorm ideas and are on a roll? That’s how I felt.
Since I enjoy helping people I began carrying my ugly shoes around with me in case I needed them while out and about.
My Crocs even helped me out while at a kid’s party. After the children ran out of things to do, I put the shoes into a bucket of soapy water then blew lots of air into them with a leaf blower. Cheers from the crowd as thousands of bubbles rose toward the tree tops – for the moment, I was queen of the Crocs.
My Uncle Vinny asked to borrow one of the shoes, so I lent it to him, not really knowing what his plans were. I found out the hard way that he was making homemade sausage. Apparently he stuffed the meat into the shoe and pressed it out through the holes.
It worked pretty well for him, but the dope only rinsed the shoe out when he was done without using any soap.
In a hurry the next day, I quickly put on my Crocs and proceeded to walk outside. The grease from
his stupid sausage meat made my feet slip so quickly that one of my big toes pushed through the smaller Croc hole. As I stood in the yard screaming in pain, my husband rushed to my aid with a pair of wire cutters and cut my toe loose from its misery.
When I called, I was refused a refund for the damaged shoe or any settlement in or out of court, as someone on the other end just stated that I misused the product – and that I’m the kind of person they write warning labels for before hanging up the phone on me.
In my opinion, the whole conversation turned out to be a huge waste of my time. What a crock!
Anngee Quinones-Belian lives in Murphy. She loves humor and believes the world needs more of it. Email her at anngeeq@gmail.com.