Ran into a High School Alumnus

*Will post pics of the shoes I bought in this article.  Stay tuned*

**Update:  Due to the insulting treatment I received from the Value Village management team, I no longer feel enthused to "show off" my shoe findings from the Nanaimo store that day**

A couple of days ago, I went into Value Village and bought a whole bunch of used runners at half price.  It still wasn't that cheap but it was good enough.  I paid for and put the shoes in my car and came back in for seconds.  That's when I ran into Paul, my former high school alumnus.

"Fancy meeting you here," he said.  We had no knowledge of each other's shoe obseessions, but mine is worse than his.  He buys them to wear.  I buy them to wear and to collect.  That's why I own both men's, women's, and kids runners.  Paul said he used to have 50 pairs of Jordans, all brand new but has dwindled down to 25 because his house got broken into.  As a shoe fanatic myself, I really felt his pain.  Believe me.  I'm almost as glad for someone being able to build their shoe collection as building one myself.  The connection I feel with these types of people is different than those who aren't shoe collectors.  Even if that person collects non-running shoes, I still admire their obsession.  While Celine Dion got bashed on social media for having 2000 pairs of shoes, I was thinking more on lines of:  "Right on, Celine!  You go girl!"

When I knew of Paul's shoe obsession, I was very anxious to show this to him.  He felt my anxiousness and thus, he became anxious to see what I've got going.  I pulled up the door hanger of shoes on my smart phone.  He had to take off his glasses and squint a couple of times before noticing:  "Holy fuck!  Those are bright!"  If he feels a little bashful about his obsession, he has nothing to worry about.  I have it way worse than he does.  :-)