next to the peas.

I had a roommate once who wore my shoes without asking. When I found them in the corner of the common room and heavy with mud, I set a few guidelines. She quit wearing my shoes but later took to seizing my DVDs. It was a rough semester. I suppose this experienced has heightened my possession paranoia. That and the fact that I, too, am something of a bandit.

I don’t buy clothes or shoes. Ever, really. My siblings might call my method of accumulating these necessities as “klepto-like.” They’re dead right, but here’s where we separate people like me from people like my former roommate: I have rules, and they are as follows:

1. Don’t take what they love (except in the case of K’s red shorts—but I manipulated her into giving them to me, so advantage Whitney).

2. Take what they won’t miss, like T-shirts that have gone unclaimed in the laundry room for at least one month, or two weeks, depending on how much I want it.

3. Choose something you can integrate into your wardrobe, something that is very convincingly yours. If it matches the rest of your wardrobe and it looks like it could be yours, maybe it is. Pieces that so obviously collide with the rest of your clothing call attention to thievery, which is a bad. It’s memorable.

4. Denial never works. If confronted about a piece, own up to “borrowing” them. It alleviates the “lost” panic.

A huge portion of my clothing was acquired this way. The downside is that, dressed in soccer or baseball t-shirts and sweatshirts, I look like a high school gym teacher all the time. I guess we choose the trades me make.

This back story is unnecessary, but I had to give it before admitting that I’ve purchased exactly one pair of shoes in four years: my Adidas Sambas, a partnership that’s outlasted my most serious romantic relationship by six months. I wear them just about every day. After four years, even the most attentive shoe owner notices the wear, tear, and, uh, smell. SMELL? I was horrified.

I hit up Google for some cheap remedies. Buying a shoe-shaped UV light to kill bacteria was out of the question, as was simple baking soda because that would have required me to leave at 2 am and buy baking soda. No. And then there was the freezer. “Storing your shoes in a Ziploc bag and leaving them in the freezer will kill germs. Your shoes will be good as new.” Why the hell not.

I woke up today, got ready for school and work, threw my hair in a ponytail, pulled on a sweatshirt (not thieved, btw), and opened my closet door. I stared at my shoe rack for a good thirty seconds before muttering, “What the piss. Where are my shoes?”

And so began the destruction of my very organized room. Bins were emptied, shelves were cleared, a mess was made. Afraid that I’d miss my train, I settled on some grey Nikes (thieved) and headed to school.

Twelve hours later and academically zapped, I sat slumped in a chair discussing an upcoming assignment with my classmate J. She rubbed her forehead and pulled her hair out of her face and said, “I can’t wait to go home and microwave a frozen burrito. That's all I wanna do.”

I don't like frozen burritos, but I decided to be agreeable. “Frozen burritos are actually…”

And then it hit me. I’d forgotten to buy frozen burritos.

Kidding.

Chalk it up to different priorities? Lesson plans, postcolonial literature, and managing my daily, crushing anxiety?

Sorry, shoes. Today you don’t rank.