When Both Pairs Are Wet

You checked both. Neither toe box is dry. The rain from your 20-minute walk home seeped through both the leather Chelsea boots you wore to work and the canvas sneakers you left propped by the entrance to air out after last night’s run. No dry alternative sits inside your entryway closet, and you’re already shivering in your soaked work blazer, desperate to get out of wet clothes before your skin breaks out in raised, uncomfortable goosebumps.

Name your soaked Chelsea work boot pair and drenched run sneaker pair

The Chelsea boots are the pair you splurged on three months ago, soft black leather with a low block heel that’s comfortable enough for full days of running between client meetings. They’re scuffed at the right toe from where you kicked a curb last week, and lined with plush sheepskin that stays warm in cool weather but takes two full days to air dry completely if left untreated. The run sneakers are your beat-up, three-year-old canvas pair with neon green laces and mesh side inserts that wick sweat fast during 5k runs, but hold a sour mildew smell if you leave them balled up and wet for more than 12 hours. You need a pair of shoes to wear tomorrow for your early morning grocery run, where you’ll walk across a gravel parking lot and splash through leftover puddles in the store’s entryway, and your house slippers have thin fabric soles that will tear if you wear them outside. You could set the work boots on the Doorstep Bench to drain for an hour before bringing them fully inside, if you don’t mind leaving them unattended while you change out of your wet clothes.

Pick your run sneaker pair for tomorrow’s quick errand

You choose the sneakers over the work boots for a handful of simple, practical reasons. The work boots’ leather will warp and crack if you force them to dry fast enough to wear tomorrow, and you don’t want to ruin the expensive sheepskin lining by shoving newspaper inside them or holding a hair dryer up to the toes. The sneakers, on the other hand, are already well-worn, and the canvas and mesh material dries fast enough that you can have them wearable by 7 a.m. if you treat them right now. You’re working from home for the rest of the week, so you don’t need the work boots until your Friday office check-in, giving them plenty of time to air dry slowly without any extra treatment. You also don’t mind if the sneakers get a little more worn from being worn slightly damp tomorrow, since you already planned to replace them at the end of the month anyway.

Stuff your run sneaker pair with absorbent material right now

This process only takes two minutes, and it cuts the drying time of the sneakers in half compared to leaving them to air dry unstuffed. Follow these steps in order to get the best results:

1. Kick off your soaked work boots and set them on the lower edge of the entry mat, toes pointed toward the door so any excess water drips outside instead of onto your hardwood entryway floors.
2. Grab three full sheets of crumpled black and white newspaper from the stack you keep by the door for wrapping fragile donations, avoiding any pages with glossy colored ink that can bleed onto the sneaker’s white rubber toe cap and leave permanent stains.
3. Shove one full crumpled sheet into the toe of each sneaker, pressing firmly until you feel the mesh fabric stretch slightly to make full contact with the wet material, so the paper can pull as much moisture out as possible.
4. Fold the remaining sheet in half and wrap it around the outside of each sneaker’s upper, tucking the edges under the sole to catch any moisture that wicks out from the sides as the shoes dry overnight.
5. Set the stuffed sneakers on the highest slat of the entryway shoe rack, as far from the cold draft of the air conditioning vent as possible to speed up drying without causing the rubber sole to crack or shrink.

Illustrative example: If you leave the sneakers stuffed like this for 8 full hours overnight, they will be 90% dry by the time you wake up, with only a faint dampness around the heel collar that won’t soak through your thick cotton work socks if you wear them for 20 minutes or less. You don’t need to add any extra waterproofing spray or treatment to the sneakers tonight, since you only need them to hold up for one short trip, and you don’t want to waste the expensive spray on a pair you’re planning to replace soon.

Grab your partially dried run sneaker pair tomorrow morning before you head out

You leave a bright pink sticky note stuck to the top of the shoe rack, right above the stuffed sneakers, that says “SQUEEZE HEEL COLLAR FOR DAMP BEFORE PUTTING ON” so you don’t forget to check them even if you’re running late for your grocery run and half-asleep when you grab your shoes. When you pick the sneakers up tomorrow, you’ll pull the crumpled newspaper out of the toes and toss it in the recycling bin before you slip them on, and if the heel is still damper than you expected, you can slip a thin plastic bag over your sock to keep your foot dry for the short walk. Once you get back from the grocery store, you’ll leave the sneakers out on the fire escape for a few hours to finish airing out completely, so they don’t develop that sour mildew smell you hate. You’ll also make a mental note to bring any shoes you leave outside to air in before the forecasted rain hits tomorrow night, so you don’t end up stuck with two wet pairs of shoes again at the end of the week. You don’t need to do anything extra to the work boots tonight, since they have three full days to dry slowly before you need to wear them again, and you can scrub the salt stains off the toes when you have extra time tomorrow afternoon. If the sneakers are still damp enough to leave a wet mark on your socks when you get home, you can restuff them with fresh newspaper and leave them out for another few hours, or toss them in the laundry with your workout clothes if you want to get rid of any leftover rainwater grime before you wear them for your next run.