Recently ordered: Cherry Blossom shoe shine kit.

It is not simple to find a shoe shine kit. It's either crazy expensive from some weird upscale boutique shop or has cheap store-brand shoe polish or both.

So I thought, "Well, I'll just buy the items separately".

That resulted in having to purchase from four different Amazon shops. One place only sold one colour of shoe polish, another sold another colour, one place sold brushes, and another place sold a different kind of brush.

I couldn't find anywhere that sold everything. Not even Timpsons, a shoe care shop.

Finally, I found this Cherry Blossom. I was looking for Kiwi polish but this Cherry Blossom stuff looks legitimate. And the kit had the two colours I need (my shoes are two different colours). Had brushes. Had a cloth. No applicator brush and I wanted to buy it separately but it was sold out. I'll have to get that somewhere else.

As for shining shoes, I don't know how to do it. I've never done it in my life. But I have these expensive shoes and they're looking rough and I want to see if I can bring them back to life. I don't want to throw £300 shoes out after only a year.

My father shined his shoes. He had brushes and polish. He had a box. All the shit was in the box.

He never said, "Hey, son. You want to learn how to shine shoes?" It would have been helpful. Even if I said, "Shine shoes? What are you crazy? No, I don't want to learn about that" he could have been a parent and showed me anyway.

Maybe he thought he had time. Although, how old should one be before one learns how to shine shoes? And he never taught me anything.

I went to my friend's house one day. He was playing Baseball Stars on the NES with his father. It clearly wasn't the first time. His father was gloating because he finally got a victory over the son. Some nice little father/son bonding.

He'd also have pay per view wrestling parties for the family. I went to a couple of those. Again, a nice family activity. He'd get a bunch of snacks and we'd all watch Jim Duggan beat on Dino Bravo or whatever.

They'd eat as a family. He'd take the boys out to the local watering hole to do some fishing. He gave the kids chores. He had fatherly phrases like "a clean yard is a happy yard."

The guy worked a similar job as my father. He had twice as many kids as my father. But he still had time and money to do stuff.

And the stuff that he was doing wasn't expensive. He had a cable installed so those Pay Per View wrestling shoes were free. I guess the Nintendo was pretty expensive but he was clearly able to afford it. They had a similar house to ours. We all went to the same school. He was paying tuition for this school.

I didn't see that guy sleeping once. I didn't see him drunk once. He may have consumed alcohol and he surely slept but I never saw either.

And he died maybe two or three years after my father died.

The last I heard, this was years ago, this friend of mine was living in New York state. Not New York City.

His younger brother, who was a couple years younger than him, was or possibly still is in the military and married some nurse and they have a couple of kids. At least according to a Facebook profile that hasn't been updated in three years.

Presumably, the guy in the military knows how to shine shoes. But I bet his father taught him long before the military got involved.

It's just weird to me. Have children but don't do anything with them. Don't assist in any way. Don't offer advice. Just let them figure everything out themselves.

I don't like the service at the post office. You know, it's all "rush rush! get'cha in, get'cha out!" Then they've got those machines in the lobby, they're even faster, no help there. You might even say, I hate the post office. That, and my parents. Lousy beatniks.