The Mundane and the Middle

There are plenty of mundane things in an otherwise exciting and fulfilling life like I consider mine to be. And these things may be mundane, but you still have to do them. I’d rather sustain a goose egg to the forehead than go back-to-school shopping. But the kids are going back to school. And they can’t go naked. So we shopped.

And speaking of goose eggs, about the time I got stupid and bought Vans, which are clearly designed for flat-footed 15-year-olds, my feet got old. Like Plantar Fasciitis old. Like compression sock/brace-wearing old. Ordering special insoles is mundane. But this week, I had to do it. Because I’m not going to stop running around Busch Gardens with my kids, even if it hurts to do it.

And speaking of Busch Gardens, we were on our way out the door on Monday night. Not to Busch Gardens, but to Skate Night. Skate Night is a thing where a whole bunch of nice nerds get together every Monday night from 7-10 and skate. Kids from 2 years to 20 years are out on the same rink. Some parents join in. I did on occasion until a 5 year old took me out (years ago) from behind. My behind was 4 weeks recovering from that. Now I just watch.

On Monday night we were leaving for Skate Night particularly early to meet some friends for dinner. I was having a little trouble with my right foot and had to think through my footwear a little more than usual. Because I’ve been purging every corner of the house, I don’t own very many shoes these days. I had two pair of Vans that were cute as buttons, but I gave those to my daughter. Because pain. So I’m down some shoes. And something made me throw on my old Crocs on my way out the door, because Crocs are back in. And I like to be in. Except for Vans. I was crossing the garage in my Crocs to get in the car when my 15-year-old who is too cool for school and many other places stopped in his tracks. And he gestured so that I would stop in my tracks also.

“Uh, you can’t wear those out,” he said, very politely and matter-of-factly.

“Why not?” I asked genuinely. “They’re back in.”

“Not those,” he answered. “Not for you.”

Ouch.
Ouch.

My self-esteem has taken quite a hit lately. I manage it okay. I embrace the nerd part of my personality that still relishes in the long-deceased authors of my youth. I know my kids’ friends like me enough to come around. I don’t care too much what they think about my outfit choices. But I’m not dead. I do care a little.

It’s the middle kids giving me trouble. They live together in the Middle. The conspire together in the Middle. They fight with each other in the Middle. And they come at me from the Middle. The Middle is a whole thing. I think it’s probably a hard thing in some ways. And I’d be tempted to feel sorry for them except that I don’t have time for that. I’m too busy dodging what they hurl at me from the Middle.

As I stood there in the garage, reluctantly accepting that the Crocs were a mistake for Skate Night, I had to come up with an alternative.

“Listen,” I responded. “It’s this or my Keens.” Clearly that wasn’t the right answer, because the female Middle said,

“What about your black flip flops?”

I have been trying to avoid flip flops this week.

“Those are up in my room and I don’t want to go back for them,” I answered. We were in a hurry. Tampa traffic was a nightmare on Monday.

“I’ll grab ’em for you,” my son said and dashed back in the house like he was being chased. I’ve never had a child run an errand for me with more speed or enthusiasm. He returned 40 seconds later with my flip flops. They aren’t the coolest things around, but apparently they are far and away better than my Crocs or my Keens.

“You know what? We gotta go shopping,” he said on the way to dinner. “For shoes.”

“What? You have so many shoes!”

“Not for me,” he clarified. “For you. I want to go with you.” I glanced at him in the passenger seat. This was not a favor to me, but because I think he believed it was, I went along with the conversation. “What are you looking for?”

“Cool and cute but super supportive. Maybe we could go to Rack Room this weekend.”

“No, no, no. You aren’t going to find cool and supportive at Rack Room.” At this point he began to search for shoes to show me. He found a subset of what he thought I might like as we pulled into the restaurant parking lot. “How ’bout these?” He asked. They were ok.

“How much?” I asked.

“$165.”

“A hundred and sixty-five dollars?!” I guffawed. “That’s a hard no. Those shoes would need to be made of precious metals or have a method of generating their own source of income for me to spend that.”

“What’s your limit then? $100?” he asked, refining his search.

“Probably. Even that makes me uncomfortable.”

At that point, we had to drop the conversation for the evening activities. Since then, I have run all over Busch Gardens in my Keens, worn my dirty light blue Nikes to church, and ordered a brace and some insoles. I still don’t have new sneakers and I’m still not traditionally cool. But on Tuesday night, a mere 24 hours past the unfortunate Crocs incident, when it came time to take a 200-foot nose dive from the front row of Sheikra, I was good enough and cool enough for that. And nobody cared what was on my feet when they were dangling from the track of an inverted roller coaster.

And speaking of inverted roller coasters, I’d rather be wearing red Crocs as the baby of the family than wearing Sperrys in the Middle.

And that’s about as mundane as it gets.