White Right Shoe, Blue Left Shoe

I'm Cheap. My lovely wife, the wonderful Mrs C, will attest to this. I am a bit on the frugal side, but today's trip down memory lane took place back in the summer of 1993, when I was a wee lad of 31.
I was working at a place called the Salesian Center Boys and Girls club, a one man work force that cared for and operated an 8 lane bowling alley on the 2nd floor at 45 south 6th street in Columbus Ohio. It was the home of the Downtown Boys and Girls Club, and was operated by the Brothers of a Religious order founded by St. Don Bosco.
When you walked by on the downtown City Streets next door to what was then Grant Medical Center, you could look up, into the windows, and see the back of the Bowling machines, as well as hear them when people were Bowling.
They operated a summer camp during the day, which consisted of 8 hours of me teaching kids between the ages of 7 -14 the fine art of bowling.

Yes, you read that right. Every hour, 24 kids, 8 lanes, one coach, and I had a helper, 18 year old blue eyed, blond haired, fresh out of Bishop Watterson high school Emily. Emily was about 5 feet tall, and 100 pounds soaking wet on a good day. It was the two of us and Twenty Four inner city minority children, many of whom had never picked up a bowling ball before.

Just so you know, it was by far the most rewarding summer of my life.

Anyway, at that time, I lived in my house with a roommate by the name of Fred the Dog, a Buff colored purebred Cocker Spaniel. Fred liked to chew things, especially shoes, and it came to pass that Fred ate a pair of my high top Nike shoes.
Fortunately, I had two pairs I had purchased at a two for one sale.

Unfortunately, Fred ate one from each pair.

Fortunately, he ate one right foot shoe, and one left foot shoe.

Now I could have been mad, but my reasoning was this: I still had one good pair!
Who cares if they are different colors? I didn't! So it came to pass that I wore them as a pair, and was openly mocked (in a fun way) by other Center Employees.

I did have a casual lady friend at this time, who had graduated from Ohio State with a degree in Social work, and was a practicing Catholic like myself. I introduced her to her future husband, by the way, and all you need to know about her is that she enjoyed instigating water balloon fights on the playground. She was aghast that I would wear those mismatched shoes everyday, and secretly took up a collection to buy me a new pair, which were presented to me on the last day of camp in August. After that, I felt obligated to wear the new shoes, so I retired the others for when I was doing things around the house, like Lawn mowing.

Mrs C will tell you, that to this day, I do not throw out old pairs of shoes. They are in the garage, waiting for that moment that they can be used again. You never know when I might need them. as for that pair of mismatched Blue/White Shoes? eventually Fred the Dog ate those as well. It was one of many indulgences I granted my wife's "Bow Bud."
How did he get that name? That's another story, another day.