When I first heard about the special edition Kirkland x Nike collaboration Dunks, my knee-jerk reaction was along the lines of, lol look at these ultimate dad shoes, followed immediately by, I want them, because I’m a fan of Dunks in general given their visual proximity to Jordan 1’s which are still in my opinion the pinnacle of sneakers in history.
Originally, they were slated to have been released “Holiday 2025,” is what sneaker news cited, and I remember thinking that there couldn’t be a more perfect thing to redeem the $180~ cashback certificate I had been sitting on all through 2025. That is, if I could even get a fighting chance to get my hands on a pair, because according to sneakerhead culture, these were picking up heat at potentially being the most demanded shoe in history, depending on whom you asked, but the point remained that the demand for these was going to be really high, and therefore, difficult to get.
I was hoping that my one saving grace was that being a Costco Executive member, the early hour perk could be my only chance at being able to get a shot at these. But as Holiday 2025 approached, came, and then went, without there being any news of these moving forward, it became apparent and then confirmed that the Kirkland Dunks were a no-go, and that there was no clue to when they were going to drop, if they ever were.
And then of course, without any warning, they suddenly dropped, but in like, seven Costcos in the nation, most of them being on the west coast. Naturally, once word got around, they were all gone, and are already up on resale sites for 3-4x the MSRP of $134. Of course, Atlanta was not included in this initial drop, but scuttlebutt left it vague enough that these could potentially start rolling out in other Costcos across the nation, and my hope that Atlanta being a large enough market to be one of these supposed future drop locations could be there began rising again.
Over the span of the last week, I’d actually been checking the Costco not too far from my office right at 9 am on a daily basis, which might actually be the closest one to City of Atlanta proper, hoping to be lucky enough to luck into one of these purported “shock drops” which is a term I’m beginning to loathe considering the ambiguous and unpredictable chance that I’d even get to have a fighting chance at acquiring the ultimate dad shoes, and despite the fact that I still want a pair, underneath it all, I’m really fucking hating Nike as a company for these bullshit tactics, obviously deliberately done for absolutely no other reason than to create buzz, demand and all sorts of other intangible bullshit reasons that would be completely useless in a post-apocalyptic world once the zombie virus ravages humanity.
It’s frustrating, because they’re oft-called dad shoes, but any dad in my circumstances has almost no chance at getting them. I’d frankly pay a higher MSRP if there was a chance that I could lock in a pair, or there were at least some concrete fucking information on when these would be available and I could have a fighting chance, but it’s the ambiguity and lack of information and transparency that’s been the killer of this whole debacle.
But all the same, I still want them. And the thing is, it’s not even really so much that I want them as dad shoes that I can make beaters, these things have gotten to the point of where if I were to successfully nab a pair, I’m not even sure I’d even wear them given their increasing status as some kind of rare loot drop. But I just want to feel a win, at succeeding at some small lottery type of victory, because my life has been pretty devoid of those over the last few years, and I think it would do my personal morale some good to feel special and lucky in any manner that doesn’t come from my children.
On that same token, on the very high likelihood that I do not succeed, it’s just going to make me really more resentful towards Nike as a company, which won’t necessarily cause me to full boycott, seeing as how I have a few pairs of J’s that I still enjoy, but still curse their existence whenever the topic of sneakers comes into play, although I wouldn’t rule out purchasing future product if they fit my fancy.
