Swoosh

It’s a question I get asked a lot these days.

How do you buy shoes?

Don’t laugh. It’s something I really thought about a lot. I’m a sneaker person. I have about 30 pairs of shoes, half of which are now kind of useless to me. At least until I get the prosthetic.

I assumed there were specialty stores, not unlike the one that Peggy Hill in King of the Hill went to for women with large feet.

I guess I assumed there’d be a shoe store for people with no feet.

Well, those stores exist, for example, there’s a really cool online store called 1 Foot 2 Shoes, started by an amputee who asked himself the same question. There, you can comfortably shop for one shoe.

There are all kinds of resources for one-shoe swapping, or places to get single shoes, one of which is called the National One-Shoe Exchange.

However, while I was doing research on the topic, I found this really cool program from Nike, called the One-Shoe Bank, where the company straight up gives you one shoe a year.

Here’s how it works:

Call Nike customer service at 1-800-344-6453 and let them know that you heard about the One-Shoe Bank.

They will ask you for your shoe size, your mailing address, whether you are left or right-footed, what style preference you have (running, walking, basketball, cross training, tennis, etc.), and even what color you prefer.

My experience with their customer service department was fantastic. They knew vaguely about the program, but had never actually done it, so we discovered how it all works together, which was cool.

This isn’t me telling you to buy Nike stuff, but I know the next time I wanted to get shorts and workout stuff, I had it in mind, if you know what I mean.

Either way, it’s really cool to know that a super large company like Nike is willing to be generous like that.

Socks, on the other hand, are still bought in pairs. I just get double the use out of them, and had a good excuse to clean out my sock drawer.

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As always, if you have it in you, please give a thought to donating time or money to Hospice Austin. They do amazing work for people who are going through the hardest thing a person can face.

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