Annoyingly, the insole of my Pitbull sandals, which are only a few months old, are pulling loose from the base of the shoe – both of them at the same time believe it or not! (Strong evidence to indicate either poor manufacturing or design for that matter).
Anyway, not a problem, as obviously I am well aware that super glue solves pretty much all problems (it’s an upgrade from Prestik, which I relied on heavily as a teenager). So on Saturday morning, with Chantelle out on her wedding cake course and Jessica and Emily under my supervision, I whipped out the old half empty tube of Alcolin super glue from my toolbox, grabbed the sandals and started judiciously applying super glue to the contact points where I was going to be putting the insoles back into place.
Sadly this half empty tube of super glue needed a fair bit of squeezing to get glue out, meaning of course it was a little on the messy side – and one particular spurt had some glue trailing down the rubber heel of the shoe.
Noting that patch would need cleaning a little later on and that I should avoid touching it at all cost, I happily continued on my glue spreading mission, and once completed, then proceeded to press the insole in, pushing firmly downwards while placing my thumb securely in the… wet patch of glue on the heel of the shoe.
Instant bonding.
The rubber of the shoe and the flesh of my thumb instantly became one. Much tugging and pulling yielding in little more than the threat of the skin being pulled wholesale off my finger, lead to increased panic, which of course meant instant squinting at the little tube to see what it offered in terms of advice for this very situation.
Acetone seemed a helpful hint, and so I and my shoe (firmly stuck to my thumb) went off to single-handedly rummage through my toolbox, finding a nice full bottle (lucky!) of acetone.
Generous amounts of acetone and lots of warm soapy water did eventually allow my finger, and chunks of rubber, to part ways with my shoe – without actually costing me any skin, which needless to say I was pretty grateful for.
Lesson of the day. Super glue and I should not be friends.
(And on a side note, at least my shoes insoles are now both sitting firm.)