From the instant I first saw the early previews of the Jordan 3 DB’s I knew I had to get a pair. It was an all red shoe that was the truly the visual representation of hot fire, not to mention the ice outsoles, and the 3M material (aka the sneakerhead’s bling bling) used on the uppers. I suspected that copping a pair might be a challenge, but I didn’t quite understand how challenging it would be.
Nike changed the release date of this shoe several times. Clearly they were trying to create some buzz on this shoe, and clearly they know what they are doing when it comes marketing sneakers. They finally settled on a release date of December 4th, 2010 at midnight. This is always confusing to people but when Nike says a shoe will release at midnight they mean midnight that kicks off the date not the midnight that ends the date. Suffice it to say I knew I wouldn’t be able to line up or be near a computer to even attempt a purchase of these limited kicks. I told myself I would just stop by Nike Sportswear, 21 Mercer sometime on December 4th to get a pair.
I slept in on the morning of December 4th, and rolled into 21 Mercer sometime in the early afternoon. Walking in I was surprised to see my corporate Footlocker working friend there. The following was our conversation.
Him: “Yo homie, what are you up to?”
Me: “Trying to cop a pair of DBs.”
Him: laughing hysterically “Then you should have been here at midnight cause that’s when they sold out.”
Me: “What are you doing here?”
Him: “You’ll see when all the people [customers] leave.”
Eventually everyone in the store leaves and one of the store employees goes in the back and brings out a pair of Jordan 3 DBs for my friend. This is obviously one of the perks of working in the sneaker industry, being able to show up your friends.
A few days passed and on the following Tuesday (12/7 for those counting) 21 Mercer tweeted that they had restocked on AJ3 DBs. 21 Mercer is a quick train ride from my work so I was able to get myself there in 15 minutes. Unfortunately this was still 2 hours after they tweeted about the restock. All sold out again. As I was walking back to the train, I saw some kids outside checking out their new AJ3 DB purchases. Must be nice to be a kid and not have to be held back by a job. You can be on Twitter all day long and you can wait in line for days for a sneaker release. Sure, I had an American Psycho daydream about jacking these kids for their AJ3 DBs, but no sneaker is worth breaking the law to obtain. Besides my friend deserved to be jacked more than these kids for the mere fact that he felt the need to gloat in front of me.
When I got back to work I was talking to one of my co-workers, who just happened to be the girlfriend of the sneaker celebrity Mayor, about my adventures in copping a pair of AJ3 DBs. She recently started working in my office and we struck up an office friendship when she found out I was into sneakers. Coincidentally, she discovered I was into sneakers after she saw my AJ3 DB desktop wallpaper.
A few more days passed and on Thursday (12/9 for those counting) my co-worker sends me an e-mail to call her. She told me that 21 Mercer had restocked the AJ3 DBs and Mayor himself had called them up to hold a pair for me. I was finally the proud owner of a pair of AJ3 DBs and I had Mayor’s GF to thank for it all. She told him about my adventures with trying to get these shoes and he took it upon himself to help a brother out with a call to 21 Mercer. I will forever be grateful to Mayor for his assistance with getting these AJ3 DBs. Mayor had added another dimension of appreciation to these kicks for me.
Since the original release of the AJ3 DBs, I’ve seen the price soar as high as $600 on the secondary market for a pair, well more than 3x’s the amount I paid for them. There have been times that I’ve considered selling these shoes, but i’m reminded of the journey I took to obtain them and that’s something you just can’t put a price on.
i took this pic b/c I thought it’d be cool to show off the fact that the kicks also served as my iphone wallpaper at the time. It was pure coincidence that the time was 10:10 and 10 just happens to be my shoe size
You are the imelda marcos of harlem. Except you aren’t embezzling and impoverishing the filipino people.