We can still be friends, though, right? Hello?

Remember when Jon and I were on our way to the island for the VERY first time? And how we stopped at Corinne's place in NYC for a couple of days before our final leg of the journey to Statia? I’m sure you recall with perfect clarity our ill-fated layover in Chicago, but here's an excerpt from that blog post, just in case:

Getting here was not easy. That isn't an allusion to the trials we overcame while Jon was completing his undergrad, I mean that we missed our connection in Chicago. I don’t really want to talk about it, I’ll just say it involved an incorrect assessment of the time, two hot dogs, and a broken flip-flop.

Luckily we had five entire hours to find me a new pair of shoes, because the pickings were slim. In the entire terminal I was only able to dig up a couple pairs of shearling-lined slippers, and some ugly overpriced sandals from that nauseatingly sanguine "Life is Good" brand. Considering I was on my way to a Caribbean island, I settled on the sandals, covered my face in shame, and burst into tears.

But! As it turned out, my shoe disintegrating in the Chicago Midway airport was a horrible blessing in disguise because those dumb 'Life is Good' flip-flops ended up being the most comfortable shoes I've ever owned. I wore them exclusively for our first eight months on the island. And I walk like crazy. And these roads are not friendly.

They sure didn't hold up well, though. What was grotesque to begin with quickly became faded and irreversibly stained. The canvas wore away and the fabric straps frayed. Still, they were perfectly molded to my feet and never gave me a single blister - NOT A SINGLE BLISTER (miraculous, considering that I walk at least 10 miles a week in them).

By about 4 months, they looked so horrible I wouldn't have considered giving them to a homeless, barefooted child. By 8 months, they were unfit for even a coin-operated campground shower. Jon's break between semesters was coming up, so I hopped online to have another pair mailed to my mom's house in Idaho.

BUT THEY WERE DISCONTINUED!!! I spent three minutes fending off impending panic before I was inspired to look on Ebay, where I snatched up the only available pair in my size despite the fact that they were in the most garish color combination imaginable. Orange and pink. A complete eyesore. But, my standards having been sufficiently lowered, I went for it.

That pair quickly went the way of the first, so for Christmas Jon gifted me my third generation, which brings me to the point of this post - comparison photos of old versus new.

Besides a size difference (they're becoming more and more scarce), these are the exact same shoes:

It's really quite incredible how rapidly they go downhill. The older pair in these photos lasted four months. FOUR MONTHS. Just think of what the first pair looked like after eight. Or, better yet, don't.