Once upon a time, there was simple little product that hit the big time and went totally diamondz.

Skateboarding is one of the fastest growing participation sports. The kids are totally down with it. Outside most malls and shopping centers, you’ll find packs of skate-rats leaping off staircases, sliding down handrails, and knocking masonry loose. Many communities have had to build skate parks for the kids to hang. There, the dudes and betties can practice kick-flips and nose-grinds from dawn to dusk, under the watchful eyes of their parents and the local police.

Shredders have learned, however, that there’s a significant limitation to their sport. No, it’s not the visits to the ER. It’s the left shoe. That’s because just about every trick a kid performs – from a pop-shove-it to a benihana-grab – is initiated by the left big toe. As a result, kids are blowing out the front of their left sole, quickly ruining an otherwise perfectly good pair of shoes. Noggles! Their meager skate budgets are getting schralped.

What’s a kid to do? Two old-school words: SHOE GOO. Shoe Goo is made by the Eclectic Products Company, an industrial chemical company that makes such things as epoxies, adhesives, nail hole fillers and coatings. Launched during the Eisenhower administration, Shoe Goo is like liquid duct tape for fixing hunting boots, repairing canvas tents, and waterproofing your waders. But it’s never been much of a mainstream product, until now. For about 5 bucks, a kid can make his $75 shoes last forever. And, even better, a Shoe Goo repair is extraordinarily shiny. So the product has become a kind of “Garish Badge of Courage,” as impressive to a skater as a ripped pair of jeans, a wicked scar, or a broken tooth. Dag! It’s totally off the hook.

Now, Shoe Goo sticks to everything, except store shelves. It’s flying off the racks faster than a boni-oni can shred the gnar.

But parents, don’t get too stoked. Eclectic Products is a private company, so you can’t buy stock in it. Hamster!