Thats Life

I had this published in Women's World..1987..Thats Life Section..strange thing is I could write the same article today about shoes, shirts, medals. 

Attack of the Running Shoes

They trip me on the staris, fall on my head when I open the closet and lurk in cartons filling the basement. They make their way into every corner of my house, show up in suitcases and hide beneath beds and chairs.
They are running shoes, a plague upon my house.  My husband has running shoes of every brand ever manufactured on this planet and few..that were not.  Some he uses for road races, others are for track and resoled shoes are for training.  Then there are the brand-new shoes guraranted to take though his latest passion,triathalons. Each pair is preserved forever. 
A few tmes a year, I try to rid myself of these shoes.
"Maybe you can throw out this pair with the holes in the toes," I timidly suggest.
"The soles are still good," he counters defensively.
"They should be that's the fourth set you've put on them. Even the guy at the store told you to throw them out and get a new pair.  You did get a new pair didn't you?"
"Yes," he replies. "He said I should retire them shoes, not toss them."
My youngest son started running when he was 8.  He is now 13, and he's accumulated a larger collection of shoes than his dad. 
A few months ago my son won a pair of running shoes for coming in first in his division of a 10-kilometer race.  The shoes were of high quality. They were two sizes too big.
"These will never fit you," I said, without taking anything away from his win. "Why don't we exchange them at the store for your size?"
"But it wouldn't be the same," he protested.
For months, they sat in the box on his dresser, sometimes being brought out for one of his buddies to admire.  He was prouder of the shoes than of the large trophy that accompanied them.
One day, I decided the shoes might do for my aeorobics workout.  I felt guilty but told myself my son would not mind if we kept them in the family.
The shoes gave me a giant blister on my big toe.  I am convinced they were paying me back for the resentment I had felt toward them as they sat gathering dust.
Not long afterward, my son amazed me by trading the cherished shoes for a complete set of 1986 baseball cards in mint condition.  He figured the cards would double in value over the next few years.  Then he would sell them and outfit himself with shoes for college track. He isn't even out of junior high school.
So I have given up.  There's no way I'll get rid of the decrepit running footwear that surrounds me.  All I can do is fantasize.
When it's spring cleaning season I might erect a huge sign on my front lawn reading...FREE RUNNING SHOES. PLEASE TAKE THEM HOME.
But I know that only other running fanatics would be interested in the offer.  They would resent the offer and band together to blacklist my family for attempting to divest itself of noble footwear.
So I guess I'll have to live out my life surrounded by runners and their shoes.  And by closets and a house that smell sort of..funny..most of the time.