This is a guy thing, pretty much, isn’t it. Or maybe a slob thing.

Wearing things forever. Until they break or split or go to pieces and fall off your body. Or, perhaps, until your significant other gets sick of looking at your rags and throws some of them out when you are not paying attention.

I have a new entry in the “worn forever” category.

A pair of flip-flops that lasted eight years. Yes, eight.

And this was not a function of selective wearing. No. I wore those things nearly every day for eight years. Not outside, but around the house. Always. I would get back from work, take off whatever shoes I was wearing, and on went the flip-flops.

My wife bought them for me in Abu Dhabi in December of 2009, at a busy place named “Greenhouse”. The flip-flops cost 10 dirhams — $2.72, American.

Or about 38 cents per year of wear. Talk about a great value!

They were knockoffs of knockoffs.

Trying to read the “brand name” from the faded white letters on the black rubber flip-flops … and it appears to be “Misuta”.

Back in 2009, the name was also on the sole of the flip-flops, but that was worn away years ago.

Misuta … plausibly Japanese (Mizuno), right? Probably stamped from recycled tires somewhere in Southeast Asia. It sounds a bit like a real, serious company, doesn’t it. But “real” flip-flops are not sold for $2.72

They might be going still if not for the carpet that runs up to the couch.

I tired to move my foot, left to right, and the side edge caught on a carpet wrinkle, effectively tripping me, and there was enough force there to rip through the rubber strap that for eight years was anchored on the right side of a rubber triangle.

I was very sad. Those were my indoors go-to flip-flops, and they probably saved me from hundreds of collisions involving “toes on furniture/door frames”. And put a quarter-inch of rubber (maybe it was three-eighths of an inch, originally?) between my feet and notionally clean floors from California to France to Thailand.

Thing about knockoff anything … it’s impossible to replace. Since the item was never a real brand. Hope to find some other cheesy (but perhaps rugged) flip-flops.

Meantime, I have taken to wearing old running shoes with short, untied laces. The shoes are light, and stretched and the short laces keep me from tripping on them. So far.

The flip-flops will go in the trash, eventually, to be followed someday by the gray, paper-thin T-shirt with a faded USC logo I’ve worn forever … and two pairs of voluminous cargo short pants that are great for walking but falling apart … and the ratty sweatshirt that started dark blue and now is a very pale sky blue … and the battered running shoes that have replaced the flip-flops.

When you have items of clothing you like and that fit well, you never want to give them up.

Even when they would be dismissed as trash in the world’s most desperate slum.