Last night we went bowling with Craig & Ginger Corley, some of our good friends in San Marcos. I thought I’d been up on the latest developments in bowling, including “disco turbo lazer bowl” or whatever they called it when they added fluorescent balls, black lights, and seizure-inducing strobe lights to the bowling experience. But nothing prepared me for…the shoes.

Now, back in my day, bowling shoes were ugly, but almost delightfully so. They had the size printed on the back in enormous numbers so there was no way to hide the embarassing hugeness of your feet (10 1/2, thanks), and were made of several different colors of leather. They were very deliberately ugly, but so delightfully chunky and obvious that I always wanted to swipe a pair. My good upbringing got the better of me, though.

Last night’s shoes were a travesty. Not only were they made of some odd synthetic material probably developed originally for the space program to preserve food, but they featured large, velcro straps that went over the top of the shoe to secure it to your foot. Now, I’m all in favor of velcro in the shoes of children, as it saves countless hours of shoe-tying time for their parents, but velcro has no place in the shoe of a God-fearing adult. No self-respecting member of Generation X would be caught wearing these, tongue firmly planted in cheek, delighting in his clever irony. I think if I accidentally walked out of the bowling alley with the shoes on my feet, my children would make me turn right around and take them back as soon as I walked in the door of the house. And rightly so. They are New Coke for your feet. Ick.

Photo coming as soon as Craig sends it to me.