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A few years ago someone asked me to write a quick 300 words on “bin shoes” – dedicated footwear you leave by the door to put out the bins. At the time I was experiencing a degree of sloth I decided to dress up as indignation: I emailed back saying I knew nothing of so-called bin shoes, that I had one pair of stout boots that served me in all circumstances.
This was more or less true – I’m on my sixth pair of identical pull-on ankle boots, which suit both formal and informal occasions, and all seasons. I wear them on long hikes, even though I probably shouldn’t, and I slip them on late at night, without socks, when I have forgotten to put out the bins.
Of course I do own other shoes, including some classic branded trainers that were deeply fashionable when I was nine, but which my mother would not buy me, presenting me instead with suspect lookalikes.
“They’re supposed to have three stripes,” I said. “These have four.”
“A bonus stripe,” my mother said.
“These are bobos,” I said, using my peer group’s common slang for cheap knock-off trainers.
“What’s the difference?” she said.
The difference, I explained, was that when I went to school in them the other children would gather round me and sing “Bobos, they make your feet feel fine/Bobos, they cost a dollar ninety-nine…” to the tune of the Colonel Bogey March. My mother thought this was hilarious.
Anyway, last autumn my middle son let it be known that his work shoes had worn out, and that he was seeking an all-purpose footwear solution.
“What about Dad’s boots?” my wife said. The middle one leaned over the kitchen table to examine my feet.
“They’re very versatile,” I said.
“Yeah, maybe,” he said, frowning a little.
“I’ve worn these babies to funerals,” I said. “And I’ve worn them to the beach.”
In spite of his reservations, my wife bought him a pair. He was so pleased with them that she gave our other two sons a pair each for Christmas. For a short period I considered myself an intergenerational influencer, before the trouble started.
The first time it happens I’m on my way to the shops when I notice something disquieting about my gait. I feel graceless, rackety and slow. It’s just age, I tell myself, but I’m still out of sorts when I reach the front door, where I am greeted by the middle one standing in his socks.
“Are you wearing my boots?” he says.
“No,” I say looking down.
“Yes, you are,” he says, “and I need to go to Birmingham.”
“Wow, they really are identical,” I say. “Actually I did notice something weird when I …”
“Take them off,” he says.
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Weeks later the oldest one moves back home, and promptly sets off for work in my boots, leaving me his size 10s, which fall off when I walk.
“Didn’t they feel tight to you?” I say when he comes home that evening.
“They did, yeah,” he says. “What are they, like size 8?”
“8½,” I say. “I’m actually a 9, but I know from experience they run big.”
A week after that I’m late for a recording session with the band I’m in. When I go to leave the house I find a single pair of black boots by the front door: one 8½, one 10.
“He hasn’t,” I say. But evidently he has. Coincidentally, the day before my classic branded trainers had split a seam, so the toe of the right one hung open, slack-jawed. I can’t wear those, I think. Nor can I wear two boots of markedly different sizes, even though my son apparently can.
Upstairs in my cupboard I find a pair of Slovakian canvas sneakers my wife once bought me. There is, I think, nothing else for it.
As we sit in the recording studio listening to the drummer add extra cymbal crashes to a track, the guitar player turns and looks me over.
“This is a new style for you, isn’t it?” he says. I look down at myself. I have on a densely patterned half-sleeved shirt I found in my holiday luggage, and shoes that might accurately be described as bobos.
“You appear to think of me as someone who doesn’t have summer looks,” I say, “but I have summer looks.”
“I wasn’t criticising,” he says.
“I’ve got lightweight knits,” I say. “I’ve got structured linens. ”
My phone pings – my oldest son’s reply to my recent text. “I’m wearing trainers,” he writes. “All the boots are in the house.”
As I look down at my feet an ancient tune threads through my head: “Bobos, they’re made for hoboes, so get your bobos for hoboes today.”
