Flip-flops. I understand the appeal, particularly in summer when, despite the evidence in Michigan that it’s going to be yet another chilly, sweater-worthy July afternoon, one is nurturing the belief that one is foot-loose and fancy-free. They take but a second to slip into. They’re inexpensive. They keep the feet cool. For the ten steps between the back door and the garbage pail when I’m on a trash run, they’re dandy. When I’m standing still in the back yard and watching Fred sniff the hostas, they’re perfectly useful.
I’ll be damned, though, if I can wear the things. First there’s the issue of appearance. My are clean and free from both carbuncles and bunions, I’m certain you’re happy to know, but does anyone really need to be seeing the enormous boats on which I walk around? Do I need to feel as if my toenails are on display, and worry about whether I’ve trimmed them any given week? No, I really don’t, and the public should be spared having to spare my prehensile digits, especially given the fact that my unthinking reflex when I drop something non-edible is to pick it up with my toes and pass it off to my hand, so I don’t have to bend over. People really don’t want to see that.
There’s a more important issue, though. How in the world do people walk in them? When this afternoon I took a half-block stroll down to the post box at the end of my block, when I wasn’t keeping my toes curled up in a little ball, resulting in a constipated gait that looked like something might have been approved by the Ministry of Silly Walks, my flip-flops were flying off my feet and onto the middles of my neighbors’ lawns. Chasing after them, picking them up (with my prehensile toes), and silly-walking back to the sidewalk took up waaaay more time than I would’ve spent putting on some real shoes, back at the house.
Ah, flip-flops. I love what you represent. I simply can’t cope with your deceptive simplicity.
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