The Missus went out for a cross-town errand run, so for  a few hours the home became the pad.  And of what debauchery and bad things did I get participate?

Shoe shining.  I silently keep a distance away from my shoe shining box, because I just don’t want to get started on a pair.  But of course, if you maintain a little bit over time, it’s really not that bad.  So I threw THE COSMOS on and made this happen, finally:

It might’ve been Neil Degrasse Tyson’s delightfully scientific baritone to set me at peace, but for the first time I was determined to work in a mirror shine at the toe end of my shoe.  It’s definitely a doable task, but it’s gonna take a whole lot of practice and patience.

Essentially, after you work in a couple of coats of wax on the entire shoe, you focus all your attention and muscle on the toe.  You dab just a bit of water and just a bit of wax, rubbing in light circles.  What’s occurs is that the fine layers or wax begin to fill the pores of the leather, making the entire surface smooth.  Over time – and if you’re doing it right – you’ll notice the glints of light bouncing off the toe.   With all that work, this should probably occur:

The time it takes, as well as the quality of the shine depends on a few factors, namely leather and wax quality.  I can’t get into the details of the process itself, since I’m not the kind of person who should be giving directions on something he just lucked out on.  Instead, take a moment to read and watch Justin FitzPatrick’s excellent tutorial here.  In the meantime, let’s see how long it takes before the mirror gets all scuffed up.  Here’s to shiny shoes!