Dear Friends,

I’m sorry I’ve been a bad blogger lately.  You deserve better.  School is no excuse.  I will try to step it up around here, okay?  Please don’t leave me.

Love,

cpsf

That said…

…you see this box?

It’s a simple box.  No big deal, really—it only holds the greatest thing ever to happen to footwear since the jelly shoe.

That’s right, my friends—my TOMS™ came in the mail today.  And since I can’t so much as pass gas without telling the world about it, naturally I documented every step of the grand opening.  I sliced open the box and found this:

Another box.  A shoe box, specifically, printed with a touching photo of the founder, Blake Mycoskie, helping a poor child with her new pair of TOMS™.  Lucky girl.

“For every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of shoes to a person in need.  One for One.”  They print that sentence on every surface ink could possibly stick on.  It’s almost like it’s their mantra.  Or something.

I opened the second box, and SQUEALED with delight when I saw how they had packaged the shoes themselves:

A LINEN BAG!  WITH PRINTED WORDS ON IT!  AND A LOGO!  I am nothing if not a sucker for packaging.  {Oh, and by the way…you just KNOW that box is 100% biodegradable.  TOMS™ would accept nothing less.}  Plus, the one thing that really bothered me about the documentary of the first shoe-drop was how all their shoes they gave away were packaged in clear plastic bags—you’re not doing the poor people any good by giving them shoes if they’re just going to suffocate in a landfill of plastic bags afterward, TOMS™.

Anyway, I got off my soapbox and continued my joyous package-opening.  Before I could open the bag, though, I was temporarily distracted by the party favours that came with the shoes [I get distracted easily, in case you couldn’t—oh look, a leaf!]:

First, there was a passalong card proclaiming the TOMS™ mantra…

…and next, I pulled out a STICKER DECAL!  I immediately had grand visions of all the amazing places I could stick this trendy decal—my white MacBook™, my flute case, my backpack—I could even buy a fancy new square Scion™ and stick it on the back window, right next to my Mac™ apple decal I got three years ago with my iPod™!  But then I snapped back to reality and remembered that I don’t really like square Scions™, and even if I did, I don’t have money to buy one, and even if I did, Poor Kyle would divorce me if I ever stuck a decal on any area of a brand new vehicle because he thinks that’s incredibly tacky, and even if he DIDN’T, I don’t like that kind of commitment anyway—stickers are just too permanent for me {and to think, I used to want a tattoo!}.

What was I talking about?  Oh yeah, the decal.  It was sweet.  I slapped it onto one of my three class binders and continued on with my gleeful excavation:

The bag is sweet.  I need to think of something cool to use it for.  Maybe wrapping a Christmas present?  But that would be problematic for two reasons: First, whoever got the gift would be disappointed because whatever I could put in the bag would never be as cool as its original contents, and second, then I wouldn’t have the bag anymore.  I’ll just keep it.  Oh, the greed…

***Edited to add: It was about this time during my TOMS™ experience that I thought, “Doesn’t their logo look like some country’s flag?  I’m SURE it’s a flag!”  I was pretty certain it was the flag of Greece, but upon doing some Google™ research, I realised the TOMS™ logo looks nothing like the Greek flag.  So then, I Googled™ “blue and white flags” and sure enough, look what popped up:

The ARGENTINE flag.  Of course.  Because TOMS™ shoes are modeled after a typical Argentine style of shoe.  I’m brilliant for figuring it out, but not as brilliant as the TOMS™ people who thought of it in the first place, but even they aren’t as brilliant as the Argentinians, who were clearly ahead of their time when they designed this simple, modern, and oh-so-trendy flag.  Kudos, Argentina.***

Anyway…

Another picture of the bag.  What?  What’s that, you say?  You’re sick of seeing the bag?  Get on with it already?  But…THE BAG!  It’s amazing!

Okay, fine.  I’ll move on.

But only a little bit.  {I just can’t get over that amazing bag.}  The label stuck to the back of the shoe is my particular favourite.  So cute!

It reminds me of the pair of Uggs™ I do not own, only TOMS™ are better for the world.

Great—now I’ll never be able to buy a pair of Uggs™, because they don’t give away a pair of boots to a poor person with every pair I buy.  TOMS™ have ruined me.  Image from here.

Anyway, when I FINALLY pulled them out of the bag, THE BAG!, {and I swear it didn’t take me as long as I’m making it sound} I was overjoyed to find yet another socially-conscious decision TOMS™ had made:

It’s…it’s…it’s a shoe insert that looks to be made of recycled post-consumer products!  You just KNOW that’s biodegradable.  Good job, TOMS™.  If I’m going to have my friends spend fifty dollars on my socially-conscious birthday presents, I want them to know the packaging of their gift isn’t going to be hanging around a landfill for the next century.  I mean, if you’re already giving away shoes, one for one, you might as well be green, too.  No sense in only being a half-good company.  Now, if only I could figure out a way to incorporate these into my Halloween costume…there’s got to be a way.

And then, of course, there was the lining:

What are those animals?  Elephants?  Rhinoceroses?  I’m ashamed to say I never even checked.  How socially UN-conscious of me.

Oh, and I suppose you’d like to see how they looked on my feet?

I’ll admit, I was a little worried, even before I ordered the shoes, that they would look funny from the top, due to the unusual design of the toe:

And yeah, they do look kind of weird, but no weirder than Crocs™, and I wear those just fine.  And I found I got used to the look of them as the day went by (I wore them all day at school today, oh yes I did).  Anyway, most people just see my shoes from the side anyway.

And from the side, they look awesome.  Observe:

I know it’s not a great picture, but it was getting late and I had to leave for school.  Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll do another photoshoot (or ten) with these shoes before their life is through.

So, the prognosis:

-I wore them for over eight hours, climbing up and down all kinds of hellacious stairways, and they were completely comfortable the entire day.  No breaking in necessary. I don’t have a single blister anywhere on my feet.  WHAT OTHER SHOE DO YOU KNOW THAT CAN DO THAT?

-They are a pair of shoes that is doing good in the world.

-I like them.

I promised that when they arrived, if I liked them as much as I PLANNED to like them, I would take fifty of my own birthday dollars (thanks, mom and dad and parents-in-law and both my sweet grandmas and even my sister!) and buy a pair for one of my blog commenters.

Well, obviously, they’ve come, and obviously, I like them every bit as much as I expected.  So of course I will buy someone a pair.  (I am only giving away fifty of my birthday dollars, though, so if you decide you want boots or something else, you’ll have to cover the cost yourself.  Hey—I don’t make a lot of any money at all writing this blog, so this birthday money has to last me until next year.  A sad fact, but there it is.)

So…of the forty-nine comments, there was one winner…and the winner is…

COMMENT #13—D’Rae.

D’Rae, if you’re reading this, email me at camille[at]archiveslives[dot]com with your address so I can settle up with you.  If you don’t email me, I’ll email you—I really just want to see if you’re paying attention.  Also, how do you pronounce your name?  Is the apostrophe cutting something out?  Are you really Dianna Rae, but you go by D’Rae for short?  Or is D’Rae your given name?  These questions are of life-and-death importance and should be answered at your earliest convenience.

Everybody else, I’m sorry you lost.  You’re really missing out.  Me and Chelsie and D’Rae know.

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