(Damon's latest at EBONY tells the story of how he recently bought a pair of $200 basketball sneakers he'll never, ever, ever actually play basketball in)
I’m not who you’d call a sneakerhead. I like shoes as just much as the next bougie Black man, but I’ve never been the type — at least not as an adult — to scour Eastbay and the mall for shoes and shoe release dates. And I’m definitely not the guy who, whenever a new pair of Jordans are released, stands in line for hours like I’m waiting for bread and soap in communist Russia. But, several months ago, I saw a pair of Black retro 3s on someone’s feet. Along with acknowledging how cool they looked, I had a flashback to the late 80s, when a pre-teen me actually had those sneakers.
So, for the next few weeks, whenever I happened to be near a mall, I’d saunter into a Champs or Finish Line or Sneaker Villa, asking if they carried them. None did, and each of the dudes working in each of those stores looked at me like “Dude. When Retro 3s are released, they sell out the first day. Sometimes the first hour. What made your dumb ass think you’d be able to just walk up in here and cop a pair? Shouldn’t your old ass be at Jos. A Bank's or something?”
Undeterred, I googled them to see how much they were going for on eBay. I mean, yeah. They’re expensive shoes. But it’s not like I was choosing between getting these and paying my rent. I could handle it. I’m a grown-ass man, remember?
And then I saw some of the prices…
$300. $325. $450. $475. $500.
…and I was all the way good on that.
Unless Michael Jordan was going to personally fly — not in a plane, but with actual human wings — to my house every morning and personally place the shoes on my feet, aint no way I was paying four hundred dollars for a pair of sneakers. So I forgot about them. But, apparently I talked about them enough in that three week window of Jordan infatuation that my then-fiancee picked up on it.