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That's when I found out she bought the shoes at the dollar store and the whole "space-age technology" thing was just a bunch of baloney. When Mom said she was taking me shoe shopping today, I made sure she knew I was only interested in name brands. It wasn't easy deciding which shoes to get, though. There are about a million different types, and each one is supposedly good for a specific thing.

那时我才发现这双鞋是她在一元店买的而所谓的“太空时代科技”不过是一派胡言。 当妈妈说她今天要带我去买鞋的时候，我让她知道我只对名牌感兴趣。 不过，决定买哪双鞋并不容易。 大约有一百万种不同的类型，每一种都被认为对特定的事情有好处。

There are shoes for hiking, shoes for running, shoes for skateboarding, and a bunch of other ones, too. There was a pair of fancy high-tech basketball shoes I really liked. They had some sort of thing in the soles that's supposed to make you jump higher, and I was seriously thinking about getting them. But I got nervous that if I bought those, I'd be

有登山鞋、跑步鞋、滑板鞋，还有很多其他的鞋。 有一双我很喜欢的高科技篮球鞋。 鞋底有某种能让你跳得更高的东西，我当时很想买。 但我很紧张，如果我买了那些，我会

totally out of control on the walk to school. Then there was a pair of green "cross-training" shoes that really looked awesome, but on the box it said they were for the "serious athlete." So if I got those, I think they'd just be wasted on me. I even thought about getting a pair of those shoes with wheels in them, so I could blow by the Mingo kids' woods every day.

在去学校的路上完全失控了。 然后是一双绿色的“交叉训练”鞋，看起来真的很棒，但包装盒上写着这是为“认真的运动员”设计的。 所以如果我得到了这些，我想它们只会浪费在我身上。 我甚至想过买一双带轮子的鞋子，这样我就可以每天去明戈孩子们的树林里玩了。

I finally decided on some shoes that were sporty but not to over-the-top. Mom asked me if I wanted to wear them home, but there was no WAY I was gonna let my shoes get dirty before I wore them to school for the first time. Plus, it gave me a chance to enjoy the new-shoe smell all the way home. Monday I never noticed how DIRTY the ground is until I got my new shoes. And not just the actual ground, but

我最终决定买一些运动但又不过分的鞋子。 妈妈问我要不要把鞋穿回家，但我可不想在第一次穿鞋去学校之前把鞋弄脏。 而且，这让我有机会在回家的路上享受新鞋的味道。 直到我买了新鞋，我才注意到地面有多脏。 不仅仅是地面，而是

the street and the SIDEWALK, too. The way to school is like a minefield of mud and grease and other junk, and you practically have to be a ninja to avoid all of it. In fact, after getting only one block from my house this morning, I turned around and went back inside. I got some of those plastic grocery bags to put my feet in, and for a while everything was good. But eventually the bottoms of the backs got shredded, and then they didn't give me any protection at all. So I just ripped the rest of the bags off and threw them in the nearest trash can.

街道和人行道也一样。 去学校的路就像一个充满泥土、油脂和其他垃圾的雷区，你几乎必须成为一个忍者才能避开所有这些。 事实上，今天早上在离我家只有一个街区的地方，我就转身回到了家里。 我拿了一些塑料购物袋把我的脚放进去，有一段时间一切都很好。 但最终，背部的底部被撕碎了，然后它们根本没有给我任何保护。 所以我就把剩下的袋子扯下来扔进了最近的垃圾桶。

After that I did my best to avoid the danger areas. I stayed on the sidewalk until I realized I was getting pebbles in the little grooves of my shoes, and I knew those were gonna take FOREVER to dig out with a stick. So I tried to minimize the amount of rubber that touched the cement. Eventually, I gave up and just walked in the grass. By the time I got to school, I was twenty minutes late, but it was totally worth it to show up in style.

在那之后，我尽量避开危险区域。 我一直呆在人行道上，直到我意识到我鞋子的小凹槽里有鹅卵石，我知道用棍子把它们挖出来要花很长时间。 所以我尽量减少接触水泥的橡胶量。 最后，我放弃了，只是走在草地上。 当我到学校的时候，我已经迟到了二十分钟，但是为了能时髦地出现，这一切都是值得的。