He feels his heels are really bleeding

A couple of weeks ago I bought a brand new pair of dress shoes: brown leather Tasso Elba shoes. When I tried them on in the store, Macy's, they felt fine. I even had the salesman feel where my big toe was in the shoes to confirm that the size seemed right.

Well, the first day that I wore the shoes to work I realized not far into my 15 minute walk to work that the shoes didn't feel right. About halfway through my pedestrian commute, I began experiencing severe pain in my heels, but more particularly on my right heel. As soon as I arrived at work and took off my shoes, I realized that I was bleeding from my right heel and a good amount of skin had already been lost due to the heavy friction. But since I had bled through my sock and bled on to the shoe, I resigned myself to the fact that I would not be able to return or exchange the shoes at Macy's, bloodstained as they were.

For the past couple of weeks I had decided to wear the shoes every other day while wearing my old, beat-up and worn-in shoes on the alternate days. And although I was wearing bandages on each of my heels so that I wouldn't bleed, the shoes (again: more specifically the right shoe) still felt uncomfortably tight.

So I made the decision right before this week began to go full-force; I decided that I was going to wear these damn shoes every day until they get totally broken in. I will continue to wear the bandages on my heels until they run out; so I have about another week of heel protection. The shoes are now, relatively speaking, more broken in than before, but the key emphasis is on the phrase "relatively speaking." I figure, though, that leather can stretch, and I'm determined to continue breaking them in.

The first couple of days that I wore the new shoes, I was made fun of because I couldn't walk normally. My friend Michael said that I was walking like a stick figure: very gingerly and with unbending knees. In fact, it was taking me fully twice as long to walk to work than normal: from 15 to almost 30 minutes walking. Even now, I still have to walk a bit slower than I would like to; but maybe that'll give me a chance to enjoy the scenery, right?

I've gotten compliments on the new shoes, and the old shoes had completely worn down the outer edge of the sole, to the point of some holes in the bottom of the shoe, my point being that I'm committed to keeping the new ones and trashing the old ones. But the breaking in process goes on. You can call me the shoe-whisperer.