These are the shoes I wore on my first day of high school, 1991. They are cute black clogs with an ankle strap around the back.

Once, when I was walking down a flight of stairs, the ankle strap slid down my foot, and the clog was sent airborne, hitting a popular jock in the back of his shin. (I was secretly pleased).

At one point, the strap on the left shoe broke, and my friend Zara's darling boyfriend Turtle fixed it for me. But then years after graduation, it broke again. I've yet to determine Turtle's whereabouts, so they're still out of commission.