Son, Don’t Use One Of My 217 Shoeboxes From My Sneaker Collection For Your Valentine’s Box
I can not “lend” you a “spare” shoebox so that you can put glitter glue on it to receive a 25 cent card from a girl who will stab you in the back at recess.
Hey son, can we talk? Your mother told me you got into a little predicament at school, and that you got a note sent home from your teacher saying that you’ll need to bring in a Valentine’s Day box to exchange Valentines. Your mother also informed me that you asked to use one of my shoeboxes to make this box, of which I have 217 and counting, hopefully 218 once the new Yeezys drop.
Son, this is serious. While I do display all 217 pairs of my designer sneakers in a customized walk-in closet with built-in catwalk and mirrors mounted on every wall to give me a continuous, 365-degree view of my shoes, I need those shoeboxes for potential resale. There’s a good chance you’ll be going to college on those shoeboxes. I can not “lend” you a “spare” shoebox so that you can put glitter glue on it to receive a 25 cent card from a girl who will stab you in the back at recess when she finds another seesaw buddy. That didn’t happen to me, it’s just an example. Are you hearing what I’m saying, champ?
You say all your friends are doing it? Participating in this shoebox massacre? Everyone in your class is? Well, if everyone in your class jumped off a cliff, would you do that, too? Listen, son, you’re going to be faced with a lot of difficult decisions in this life. You’re going to see your friends doing something that you know is wrong, and they’re going to want you to do it too. First, it starts out with decimating a designer sneaker’s shoebox for Valentine’s Day. Then, it turns into wearing Crocs. And then one day, you’ll find yourself giving up on a bidding war for the last pair of Jordans because you had to witness the birth of your child. You have to push back on the peer pressure!
You’re still not understanding the gravity of this Valentine’s Day box situation, are you, bud? How about this: when a man loves a pair of shoes very, very much, more than life itself, he pays an absorbent amount of money for those shoes. And not long after that, another over-priced bundle of sneakers joins his collection! And soon, the man is taking out loans to purchase these high-priced tennis shoes and defaulting on his mortgage, just to be able to afford these shoes that he loves so much. Still wanting to slap stickers on that “V-Day box,” are you, son?
Not only is it your responsibility as my son to not participate in the shoebox Valentine’s Day massacre, it’s your responsibility as a man. No, you haven’t been through puberty yet but this shoe addiction is in our biological DNA since the cavemen. We were socialized to be hunters, threatening people on online forums and outside Nike stores, just like the cavemen. Real men hoard all of their shoes in their home, never putting them on as it would ruin their value. A hole in the shoebox destroys the value because it’s so important a box with a printed logo on it that can easily be recreated stays in its mint condition. One day, maybe when you’re 9 or are able to grow a mustache, you’ll be able to understand this.
Listen, I want you to follow your dreams, which are my dreams. You know I’m getting up there in age and I’ve been running this family business of hoarding designer shoes for over 40 years. Without you even knowing it, I’ve been training you to run the show once I kick the bucket. My dad did the same thing to me and so did his dad and so on. You may not get it now as an eight-year-old, but you’ll understand that you just can’t go out cutting holes in our products just so you could get a generic valentine with a stale Hershey’s Kiss from the girl you sit three rows behind. I never participated in Valentine’s Day growing up and look at me now! Divorced and unloved with a collection of over 200 pairs of shoes to my name. But that’s the price of business kiddo, and you can’t let family get in the way of the family business of collecting shoes made by child slaves.
Anyways, thanks for sitting down with me. I know it must have been hard to see or hear me this entire time since you’re standing behind that 20 feet tower of shoeboxes. I promise you’ll be able to sleep in your own bed again sometime soon. For now, you and I can be happy living in our shoeboxes as long as you remember to not touch anything. And hey, I think I saw last year’s Russell Stover box I tried to give your mother to win her back somewhere behind one of those Reebok boxes. Happy Valentine’s Day, sport.
