Around five years ago, I was a total basketball fanatic. I would watch every Bulls game on television. I loved watching Michael Jordan play. He was the best. There was no other player like him. Naturally, there was another thing that I liked a lot. I also loved basketball shoes. I loved the way they looked. I loved the way they felt and I loved the way the smelled. Every time I got a new pair I would smell the inside for hours. My favorite pair of shoes was Air Jordan XI's. They were the ones with the black-patented leather. I could see my face in them. They were so awesome. I got chills just looking at how cool they looked. I remember getting them out of the box every day and just putting them on my bed so that I could walk around and look at them from different angles. They were my dream and my fantasy. I knew that there would never be a better pair of shoes in the world. That's why I took such good care of them. Every time I wore them I would make sure not to step on anything that would get them too dirty on the bottom. I tried to just walk on the sidewalks. I also tried to stay away from other people's feet so that they wouldn't step on my shoes. Every time I took them off I would clean them and I would take extra time in cleaning the bottoms so that they would stay looking new. I hardly ever wore them. I only wore them to church and sometimes I would wear them to school, but that was very rare.
I kept them in perfect condition for a whole year, but I realized something tragic as I started my 8th grade school year. My shoes started to fit me tight. I had forgotten the fact that I was growing, even if it was a little bit. I didn't know what to do. There was no way that I was going to be able to keep on wearing them forever and there was no way that these shoes were going to be reproduced so that I could buy them again. I was able to wear the shoes for the rest of the school year.