Each summer at the Farm brings two unwelcome guests: Star thistles and foxtails. The star thistles make wearing shorts problematic and the foxtails get stuck in your shoes and socks and make walking a real misery. This summer, I stumbled upon a remedy when I was at the local Army Navy Surplus Store. They are marketed as Israeli Army boots and they are the only cheap animal product free boot that I have ever come across. They wrap tightly around the ankle and keep stuff from getting in my shoes and prevent ankle cuts. Not knowing how long they may be available, I stocked up on a couple boxes in my size (For once they actually had only my size).
Unfortunately, I never thought to check the boxes and the second one (The ones I didn't try on) contained two right boots and no left. I am bad at keeping my receipts so I just resigned myself to having wasted $20. The box stayed in the back of my truck since there seemed to be little point in bringing it inside the house.
About a week later, I was feeding the pigs at work. This has become a little more of a tricky proposition lately and it is the equivalent of a porcine mosh-pit where I am the scrawny guy getting battered about by six hundred pounders who I know are not going to try to help me up if I go down. In the process of filling the troughs, Lucas stepped on the back of my right shoe and the stitching between the canvas and the sole ripped wide open.
Suddenly my recent purchase had a new value as I was able to use one of my right shoes from the back of my truck to remedy the situation. The "old Brian" may have lamented the fact that his shoes didn't exactly match due to differences in wear, but not this enlightened fellow.
The next week I was doing feeds again and I soaked my right shoe when I was washing the water bowls. Over the course of the day this proceeded to make my foot extremely uncomfortable. The next day, I was surprised to find that the shoe had not dried out, despite the scorching temperature and it was becoming very painful to walk. About half way through the day, I recalled my last mis-matched shoe and promptly swapped it out.
The morale to this story is that while you may not intend to buy two right shoes, sometimes the universe knows that this is actually what you need and makes provision.
