Love letter to my new pair of Reefs (yes, I'm joking)

Dear Reefs,

Many other Reefs have passed through my life, but you, my darlings, are different. You’re not the same type of Smoothy’s I normally get. No, that’s right. You’ve been blessed with special contouring that was normally shaped by my feet after a few weeks. It’s almost as if you were — dare I say? — pre-worn. But I love you both nonetheless.

You were not easy to find, but I somehow managed to locate you, hanging way back on the rack, behind the puny size 9’s and 10’s. Us 13’s never get any respect, which is why we always seek each other (we yearn for each other because we’re the only ones who understand one another). When I saved you from the depths of darkness and brought you into the light of the store you seemed so weary and helpless, yet my heart had already begun to beat for you. How could I resist the clumsy, cardboard hanger you were wearing, and the price tag and anti-theft thingy draped around you like belts of bondage. I’m a sucker for belts.

But it wasn’t to be — not yet. I placed you back on the rack, in front where you rightly belong, and said, “Wait here, baby. I’ll be back,” and looked at the other shoes and was harassed by four or five employees who weren’t wearing name tags and never seem to be doing anything but standing around and trying to look rad. After I became suspicious I was the only customer in the store (surf shops always seem to have an overabundance of staff), I rescued you from the sandal corner and stole your heart with my credit card.

Let us not mention my old Reefs — worn so thin in places it was like walking bare foot — but discuss the wonders before us and our blossoming relationship. Oh, the things we’ll do and the places we’ll see. The 17th Street Beach, the Dog Beach, the pier, Main Street, the liquor store right behind the Jack In The Box on Ellis and Beach, San Clemente, Santa Monica, the ugly beauty of the desert. Oh, the places we’ll go and the thing’s we’ll see. The future is so promising.

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