Shoes and Charity...shoes.

In my recent mental inventory process of my current shoes, I have discovered I potentially have a gap in desired shoe coverage and provided shoe coverage... no, my shoes don't have holes in them.

During the winter (December to May, apparently), I wear jeans. And with jeans, I wear my favorite shoe ever, Skechers Tredds-Interactive (whatever that's supposed to mean). They are big clunky leather shoes and I have a pair in brown and a pair in black and that's pretty much all I wear. Even in the winter cause my Bearpaw boots leak in anything less solid than ice and don't keep my toes warm either. But, in the summer this gets tricky. While they are the perfect shoes with jeans, they don't look any good at all with skirts, capris, shorts, and, you know, non-jeans. Non-pants. So usually I wear flip flops for more casual and skirts and a pair of worn out Merrils for more sporty needs. But I feel there is a gap between those two. What if I wanted better looking than my Merrils but not as... flip-floppy... as flip flops? Oh, you know what I mean! Flip flops are work! And not really the best shoe choice for biking anyway.

Now, I had heard of Toms previously. Overpriced name brand, I thought. Hipster stuff. And then I saw Bobs (apparently Skechers wanted in on the whole Toms thing) and I was slightly more inclined toward them because... I like Skechers. I still wasn't sold on the canvas-stapled-to-leather look, but I heard Toms were comfortable and Mom thought they were really cute.

And then I updated Sims 3 to University and all of a sudden these shoes appear in Sims that look just like Toms. So my rebel hippie Sims are running around wearing Toms and I'm starting to like the look a little better.

So when I wanted new shoes, something light that I could bike in but still not have to wear socks, I thought of Bobs. And then made a trip out to Shoe Carnival. And discovered Bobs were around $35 on sale, more like $50 when not. For canvas stapled to leather?

I walked through the mall stopping in at Journeys and other shoe places to stare at the equally high priced Toms. "Why so expensive for canvas stapled to leather?" I ask an employee who has come to help me, in the way shoe salesmen are wont to do. "Well, it is actually really well made, and the sole is leather, and mine lasted me a long time..." you know, all the stuff I expected to hear. They cost so much because they are popular hipster shoes.

"And every time someone buys a pair of shoes, Toms donates a pair of shoes to a child in need. And they even go back and resize them and keep giving them new shoes as they grow up, so it's like a pair of shoes for life."

Really? That's kind of cool. If you know me, you know I am a libertarian. No government handouts, no government charity. But being a libertarian is only a political position, not a personal position. I believe strongly in charity, just not from the government. Charity in things like giving money to a special offering at church, volunteering your time, or maybe buying shoes that seem overpriced because really you are buying two pairs of shoes, and one might be getting taken by donkey to a kid who needs it.

I still can't afford them. And with a large selection of colors, I would need Mom to go shoe shopping with me. My ability to color select ends right after black and brown. Maybe I'll just go with a plain canvas. I want something that will work with pretty much every conceivable outfit I can come up with this summer. Because if I could afford a pair, it'd only be one.

Bobs donates shoes as well. Even Airwalk donated when they sold some of their cheap knockoffs ($15) when the whole thing was popular (I apparently missed it). I still get the vague feeling that Bobs is doing it get on the wagon. I went to both websites, and from the pictures it looks like Toms is donating... Toms, pretty much. And Bobs looks like their donating Crocs. I still have not seen any decent looking Crocs shoes. So, for the style of the world's sake, I think I might go Toms.