Today I bought what might be the ugliest shoes known to mankind.

I was having a dilemma. I decided that, when it comes to messing around for all of next week in cold, rainy Ireland, not really knowing where I am going or what I am doing, flip-flops are not going to cut it, especially as I seem to be coming down with some sort of rabid strain of pneumonia as we speak. But flip-flops are all I own.

So after class today, I went to the lounge and checked my bank account to see how much money I could spend on a sturdy pair of sneakers. As usual, it looked one hundred times worse than I expected. After having a small panic attack, I decided that the expensive shoes that I have been wanting for weeks now, in the store window in the center of town, were out.

So I went for a walk. On the way, I stopped in a church to take some pictures for an article I'm writing for my internship. After I took a few, I sat down on a bench and thought for a moment. I asked God what to do.

God said, go to Bubble.

Bubble is the Italian version of "Rave." It has every piece of clothing you could ever want to make you look like eurotrash, all for under ten bucks. I walked through the center of town, pushing my way through the crowds of screaming people attending the Eurochocolate festival (will write more about that later. Troy came this weekend and we went and it was amazing and Troy is amazing). I made my way through to the other side and there, right in the window of Bubble, I saw them in all their glorious ugliness: Converse knockoffs, with wide laces, a white rubber toe and a too-thick rubber sole. The sides were made of a checkered canvas, colored with a disturbing mash-up of mustard yellow, brownish-black, and a confusing sort of gray. The trim was, as Papa would have described it, "baby-sh*t brown." I stared at them and immediately began to laugh. They were gross. I was drawn to them.

I tried on the other colors of the same shoe, more normal colors. Red, green, purple, black and white. But something about those mustard yellow shoes, the way they made me laugh when I looked in the mirror, made me happy. They are those shoes where you never know whether to say "I like your shoes" or not when someone is wearing them, because you don't, but you need to say something about them. They look the way you feel when you are having one of those awkward days where you keep on messing up your words and tripping over things. They are the elephant in the room.

They are so ugly that they are fun. They also cost exactly eight percent as much as the other pair of shoes that I wanted cost. So I bought them and took them home, and my roommates and I had a good long laugh over them.

So next week, when I am in Ireland, traipsing around looking like an ass in my knockoff mustard-yellow Chucks (assuming that they last through the week without falling apart), I will be satisfied. Because while everyone else might have more stylish shoes than I do, I will be secure in the knowledge that maybe there is hope after all for my terrible spending habits. And that maybe, just maybe, I am making someone else laugh as much as I am making myself laugh by wearing them.