Cinder-Naki (if the shoe fits, get five pairs of it na!)

First written when Naki was in grade school:

If I could have one wish at this very moment, I'd wish for the powers of Cinderella's fairy godmother. I want to have the ability to conjure shoes up from nowhere. Why, you may say, would I wish that above all other things?

Let me tell you why...

A month before school started, my husband and I bought our son, Naki two pairs of sneakers to use. "Wag na muna black shoes", I told Ned, para makatipid. I believed the ones we bought a year ago was still in good condition and as I made sure there was a lot of allowance for Naki's feet to grow in, I was confident enough that they would still fit him. I didn't account for one growing boy who seems to have taken his feet size from mmmmm....his nanay (he!he!he!).

Well, day one of the school-year began and guess who couldn't fit into his black shoes? "Can't you just wear your sneakers the whole year?" I asked Naki only to be met by big worried eyes that said it was imperative that they wear black shoes all the time. 


Thus began our venture into the Shoe Capital of the Philippines -- to look for a pair that would fit our "Cinder"boy. Happily we found one that fit him at the right price. The story should end there, right? I mean, the next time he needed black shoes should really be before June next year di ba? 


Wrong! 


 June had barely bid us farewell when I caught sight of his slightly new shiny black shoes. Oh they were still shiny alright -- on the top, that is. When I checked more closely, they were also split right into two at the bottom. Well, I guess that's what happens when a kid uses black formal shoes during PE.

That's it, I figured, I'd just have to buy a new and more expensive pair to make sure they last a long time (well, until the end of the school year). So off I ventured to SM, armed with my credit card, to select the sturdiest and most well-crafted pair of black shoes I could see. If the price was a little higher than his previous pair, I was reassured by the fact that this new pair would last.

 Boy, was I in for a rude suprise.

Fine craftmanship and sturdiness had no defense against a third-grader who forgets to put his shoes into his bag after changing into sneakers for his PE class.

"You what???????????," I screamed when he came home with a woebegone look on his face.

I will spare you the gory details -- of the futile search, of the endless sermons and the sniffles and the tears -- and just sum it all up in three words -- NEW SHOES LOST. Those beautiful expensive shoes are kaput, gone forever,  and I have no more strength to even think of how to replace them.

Where's Cinderella's fairy godmother when you need her?

 * * *

2002 Update.  My son has a new pair of black shoes. His tatay's!!! he he. And our problem   is getting a good pair of sneakers.  

 2011 Update. Naki's in college   and my husband and I lobbied hard for him to choose Diliman over the other school in Katipunan. One of our bribes? Tsinelas. We told him he could ditch the black shoes and sneakers for the comfy thonged slippers and no one would take him to task for it. I'd like to say we won that round.Goodbye to black shoes and sneakers.  He, in fact, got so comfortable in his tsinelas that it became his  standard foot accessories. Until one rainy day when he came home soaked and bearing a tsinelas in one hand. Turned out that there was a mini flash flood inside the campus that bore one of his tsinelas away. "Hinabol ko, 'Nay! But the water was too fast.." 

 Mayron kayang Tsinelas fairy godmother?