The Ugliest Shoes in America

It happened again tonight. I was on the sofa talking to my girlfriend and the dreaded "Ugliest Shoe in America Contest" came up. My niece was listening to the conversation and immediately she wanted to know what we are talking about. As hard as it is for me to believe, somehow she hadn’t heard the story. Again, I was forced to recount every humiliating detail of the event. So here it is one more time…

I can't remember the exact month. I think it was January 2000. I was going through a divorce, doing the single-parent-thing and basically just trying to hang on. I decided some exercise might help with the stress, so I headed over to the local Sports Shoe to pick up a pair of New Balance. I quickly found my size and was standing in line when I heard the cashier talking to a woman and her teenage son in front of me. As they were chatting, the kid reached into a bag he was holding and pulled out this really old nasty pair of basketball shoes. He dropped them onto the counter and said something like, "Do this count?" The cashier smiled and took $5.00 off the price. I was intrigued, so when I hit the counter, I asked what gives. The cashier was this big tall, lanky kid. He was pasty white and looked like a left-handed pony league pitcher - you know, the Randy Johnson type. He explaind to me that the store was taking trade-ins - $5.00 off for trading in any pair of shoes. “Any Pair?” I asked. “Yep, any pair,” he responded. Hell, I was game, so I ran home and chose a pair of old running shoes I had lying in the garage. I cut grass in my old running shoes and there were plenty lying around to choose from. I headed back to the store with the shoes tucked away in a plastic shopping bag.

I should have known something was up as soon as I pulled the shoes out of the bag. I nonchalantly dropped them on the counter and waited for the cash register to start reducing... But instead, the cashier just stared at them like someone had just unloaded his pants on the counter. But he was excited too. “Hey Manny, come here!” he yelled to this guy working the floor. I think Manny's exact words were “wholly shit”. He then looked over at me and said something like “that’s what I’m talking about.” The situation then quickly escalated into one of those “manager to register 3” scenes and a crowd started to gather.

When the manager walked over, I think he was expecting to okay a return, but immediately he saw those babies lying on the counter. He picked them up and examined them like an appraiser on the Antiques Road Show. “I think we have a winner,” he finally proclaimed. He then went on to explain that his company was sponsoring the Ugliest Shoes in America Contest and he would like me, or rather my shoes, to represent his store. I was stunned. People around me were like clapping and patting me on the back. I wasn’t sure whether to thank the guy or punch him. I finally left the store with my $5.00 discount, but to be honest, I was a little pissed.

Okay… I’ll admit these were not the best looking shoes in America, but the UGLIEST. They weren't that bad. I had purchased them on a discount rack at Marshalls about four years earlier. The sticker had been marked down like ten times and I picked them up for twelve bucks. I would like to say they were an off shade of burgundy, but they probably were in fact - purple and a size 14. They were also outlined in this sort of fluorescent gray… But hey, they were only 12 bucks.

I would like to say that was the end of the story, but it isn't. I had forgotten all about it until my phone rang about a month later. It turned out to be some sweet young voice from The Sports Shoe’s corporate headquarters informing me that I had been selected as one of the ten finalists in the Ugliest Shoes in America contest. And get this; you could hear in her voice that she was excited about telling me this great news. She continued, informing me that I had already won $500 dollars and was in competition for another $5000 grand prize. All of sudden, I guess I didn’t mind having the ugliest shoes in America, though it did still hurt my feelings.

The finals were held the following week at a local mall and televised on one of the morning shows in Atlanta. They asked me to appear, but I made up some excuse about having to work to dodge the humiliation of having to explain in front of a camera what had possessed me to buy those god awful shoes. To make a long story short, I didn’t win. Thank God.

So for the record… I did own one of the ten ugliest shoes in America, but not THE ugliest shoes in America. I guess one questions still remains. When you triumph in a contest like this - Did you really win? And just for the record... I hope this is not my 15 seconds...

Story ID:	18
Written by:	Scott R. Lupo (bio, contact, other stories)
Organization:	OurEcho
Story type:	Story
Location:	Smyrna Georgia USA
Year:	2000
Person:	Scott Lupo