i write about shoes in this one. it's my best since the one where i wrote about deleting something on my computer that one time.

In the past, presently, and for the next few weeks at least (just wanted to make sure I've got all my time-bases covered), I've had to dress professionally for my job, which is very professional. This includes wearing a well-pressed pair of dress pants, a rotating array of smart sweaters, and some Italian leather dress shoes that I picked up from Salvation Army for ten bucks. Also I have to shower a few times a week and put on deodorant and whathaveyou, but never mind that.

 

I don't know if you have the same experience with expensive professional-wear that I do, working at a super-professional job and all, but walking in dress shoes is tricky business. It's not like working in food service and wearing the ubiquitous black Shoes For Crews that everyone's had to wear. No, wearing those things is like swimming in the kiddie pool that's three feet deep with water wings and a lifeguard. The bottom of those shoes are designed like tire treads. You could literally wake up one day to find that the laws of physics have changed and friction no longer exists, and you'd still be able to throw your Shoes For Crews on and walk around like it's no big deal. Dress shoes aren't as forgiving. Dress shoes are more like diving right into the deep end of the pool when the lifeguard's on his lunch break, and then realizing that the entire pool is filled with sharks and hey, it's not really water! This pool is filled with blood and chum, and the sharks are in a feeding frenzy! I don't know how you'd confuse water with blood and chum, but you just did, and now you're swimming in it, jerk.

 

I slip a lot in these shoes is what I'm saying. Is it mildly embarrassing? A little. Is it worth it for the air of sophistication that genuine Italian leather footwear brings me? You betcha.

 

Another potential downside of dress shoes is the inherent lack of sneakiness that they impart you with. Consider for a moment that people usually wear shoes called sneakers. What do we have to be sneaky about that we're all wearing these awesome ninja shoes for? Regardless of the answer, it's basically hard-wired into us to be sneaky when we're walking around now. That's why people hate it when they come in from outside when the ground is wet and every footstep is punctuated by an obnoxious squeak. They're thinking to themselves "oh shit, I'm announcing my presence to everyone in this building within earshot! How the fuck am I going to ninja my way into the food court at this mall now?" So when you make the transfer to dress shoes, you sound like you may as well be riding on horseback through the echoey halls of your workplace.

 

Now, maybe this is just me, but if I'm walking down a long hallway and I hear footsteps a good distance behind me, my first thought isn't that this person is an assassin sent to murder me. There's really no need to stop what I'm doing to turn around and very obviously check this person out, as if to say "I've seen your face now, fucker, and you've seen mine, and it's the face that will haunt you for the rest of your life." I mean, who does that? Do you know who does that? Every single person walking in front of me down a long hallway. I think sometimes that my clip-cloppy shoes must sound to them like the T-800's robotic walking as he tirelessly advances on them to murder them and wipe out whatever future children they might have who would someday hold the key to the human revolution. That must be exactly what I sound like.

 

We're switching to scrubs in a few weeks, if my sources are to be believed. Grey's Anatomy-branded scrubs, at that. My wife's taken to calling me McBeardy now. The switch to scrubs brings about the loss of perceived upper-class status. However, scrubs grant me the ability to wear sneakers to work again. And really, what are scrubs but ninja garb in a medical context? I'd say it's a net gain on my end.