You forgot to check whether or not the shoes are cake before putting them on.
Did you even looked at the best by date? Keep them in the fridge until you have to use them.
I’ve had that happen to some hiking boots once - one day their soles just turned to powder - but that was 2 decades after I got them and they had seen heavy use before that.
My grandma once gave me a pair of “new shoes”. They fell apart in the middle of an all-day track in the Alps (big mountains). Turns out she bought them for my aunt years ago and then forgot about them.
I used to dry my shoes in the microwave as it had a 10% setting.
Once on holiday I did that but the microwave was a bit more ambitious and affected the glue. Half the sole came loose on a walk
Got home fine by tying the laces around and under the shoe.
PS had a mug of water in the microwave for ballast.
Ah, the classic water glass ballast, for when you want to do microwave shenanigans, but not 800W worth of shenanigans
I bet that smelled fucking amazing
Nah I saw this on reddit a while ago when I opened it by accident. It’s a stolen image of someone’s cheap shoes that disintegrated on first wear.
The guy claiming it had the receipts and posted the image like 3 months earlier.
Wearing your shoes actually helps prevent this. Basically every sneaker collector has (or knows someone who has) a story like this. The soles get brittle over time, and will fall apart if they have sat for too long. But if you wear them, it helps avoid that from happening. The natural flexing when you walk helps the sole stay flexible. If it has sat for years, it will shatter into dust as soon as you try to flex it.
Sort of like how cast metal is more brittle than forged metal. Because when you cast metal, it hardens in random or crystalline molecular patterns. So there is very little actually holding the individual molecules together, because every join where two crystals meet is a potential fracture point. But forging it into shape with a hammer will create a more sturdy piece, because the hot hammering forces the molecules out of those natural crystal patterns. By moving the metal around, the molecules are able to form much stronger bonds with their neighbors.
Anyone who has accidentally shattered a cast iron skillet by dropping it knows what I’m talking about. People expect metal to bend, because they’re used to thinking of forged metals that have been mechanically shaped while it was hot. But cast iron will shatter like glass, because it is just poured into a mold and the molecules stay wherever they were when the molten metal cooled, even if they don’t have strong bonds with their neighbors.
your explanation is actually backwards, metals are counter intuitive at the molecular scale
Forging does not align the molecules, it actually mixes them up, and removes carbon.
Cast iron is brittle for 2 reasons. when cooling from molten the molecules are able to align into large crystals, and where these crystals meet is a boundary where cracks can start and easily propogate. And carbon in the mix makes it much more difficult for the molecules to “slip” past each other.
Hmm this might explain why the soles fell off my nice dress shoes after the second time ever wearing them.
On second thought maybe collecting things made of volatile petroleum compounds wasn’t a good investment
That’s why I keep a oil reserve in a pit out back. Got my pool guy to line it with concrete. Stable and pure petroleum
And it’s so easy to put on! Just dip your toes in for a second and you’re good to go
Flint Lockwood!
I went on a hike once with timberland boots that had been in a closet for a couple years. The glue dissolved at the destination (freshwater swimming area) and the rubber sole separated from the leather upper. I had to hike back to the car in moccasins.
Timerland boots are anything but good hiking boots.
Not good for any type of boot. I bought a pair on clearance from Sears. Legit wanted a pair of steel toe work boots for yard work and other work around the house. After about 3 years of light wear the soul started to fall away.
I would have been better off with a cheap work boot from Walmart.
Almost same thing happened to me, including them being timberland boots.
These things have long been subject to enshittification.
I was at a mountain equipment store a week ago and started talking with the owner about how shoes have completely random durability. Even same model from same brand can last years or fall apart in couple of months. She said that very often this will depend on how long the shoe was in a box as the rubber and glue don’t last forever.
My previous pair of walking boots I had for someone like 15 years. I cannot imagine a pair of shoes which disintegrates without being with in a few years.
Yeah, I’ve never had a pair just fall apart, I still have boots from my internship 30 years ago.
I’m more curious about wtf is up with that leg. It somehow looks like a forearm but also not, and like they only have half their foot left. How is it so thick and the foot so small? And the dotted pattern on the skin. Very odd.
It just looks weird because of the perspective. The camera is basically next to their knee, aimed down the leg and their toes are pointed as well. That “dotted pattern” is just hair folicles.
Edema legs
My mom used to work with this lady who was always seen with dusting shoes because she didn’t like throwing old things away, instead prefering to wear the shoes until they couldn’t be used anymore. So sometimes that woman pulled shoes older than your grandma and put dust all over the office.
While shoes should be cleaned before wearing, she was right. Shoes and clothes in general should be worn until those cant be worn anymore.
Clothes sure, shoes no. Shoes lose the ability to properly support us with time and wear. Unfortunately, like bras, they need to be semi-regularly replaced. The adage is to always spend more on anything that goes between you and the ground (mattress, tires).
Doesn’t that usually go together with shoes starting to fall apart as well?
My pair of Chuck Taylors had no support when I bought them 25 years ago, and they still don’t have any support today.
Arch support and comfy shoes are a perpetual cycle. You need those shoes because you wore those types of shoes and it made your feet “weak”.
It’s not the support, it’s the wear of the sole. They don’t wear down evenly and can eventually negatively affect how you walk and cause issues. Even if you wear flat barefoot shoes. Like usually the inside part of the heel will wear down faster if they are worn down too much it can cause pronation or supination issues in some people.
You do understand that people have different feet right? You being a flatfoot doesn’t mean others are
I’m not. The arches are there, and I own work boots with good support and all that. I just don’t where shoes like that all the time, so all the muscles and tendons and ligaments in my feet never got weakened. You weren’t born needing shoes.
I broke my left arm 25 years ago. And it’s still broken today.
Healing bones is a perpetual cycle. You need that arm because you’ve lived with it, it made your limbs weak.
Big shitpost energy, five stars!
No, as in until they’re the dust of earth. (If you get what I mean… (was the pun good?))
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uh, oh. i bought two extra pair when i found some that actually fit and were ‘affordable’. still wearing the first pair, so these other two have yet to be taken out of the bags they came home from the store in. that was almost two years ago.
Might want to cycle through them, but treat the unworn pairs really gently for the first few wears. Msybe they’ll still be ok.
The shoes I’m using are at least 4 years old and they are still rock solid. The memory foam pad behind has disintegrated with all of the abuse I’ve put it through (too lazy to untie & retie the laces everytime) but they are still as solid as they were new.
You gotta get those sketchers slip-ons man. Total game-changer. That’s all I buy now.
