Shoes are overrated.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of covering one’s feet. In fact, unless you and I live in the same house I prefer to never see you naked from the ankle down — your toes are a little crooked, the tops of your feet have those mystery bumps, and the human toenail is God’s unfinished work.
The problem is that the corporate Big Shoe overlords have brainwashed us into believing we need to stockpile footwear for every conceivable occasion. Work shoes, hiking shoes, dinner shoes, running shoes, golf shoes. And don’t forget the matching belts.
We’ve become unwitting cogs in the Big Shoe machine.
In my first real job I worked with an older guy (we’ll call him “Dick” to disguise his name but not his personality). Dick had many loud opinions, and one of them was that a man judges another man based on five things: his job, his house, his wife, his car and his shoes.
The wife thing made some sense. If a guy you hate somehow lands a normal spouse, maybe you give him a second chance.
But shoes? That one confused me. I mean, you just buy shoes. We’re supposed to be sizing each other up based on boxes of leather and rubber that we charged to a credit card?
At the time I wasn’t thinking about shoes at all, and suddenly Dick had me questioning everything. Were people judging my shoes? Did I need to step up my shoe game, to learn to assess other men’s footwear? What was I looking for exactly — shape, shine, color, cut, what?
Over time I’ve recognized that Dick had it wrong. Men’s shoes are a pass/fail exam. They’re like teeth: they should be unblemished, reasonably maintained and matching. Their main job is not to stand out. An occasional “nice shoes” compliment is fine, but anything more than that and you’ve become a Shoe Guy.
If your shoes or your teeth are noticeably fantastic then I’m sorry, you’re trying too hard. Sometimes good enough is good enough1.
Perhaps I’ve never been good at shoes and that’s why I’m annoyed by all this. And my dress shoe situation has declined even further since my remote work life began — they’ve been withering in the back of my closet, relics of a more social, shoeful era.
This summer I hauled eight pairs to the local shoe guy (shout out Tony) to be polished, repaired, cobbler-ized. They look great again! And I will never wear most of them.
I don’t know if I ever had an eight-shoe rotation for dress shoes but I definitely don’t have one now. It felt oddly satisfying to restore that part of my wardrobe, though.
Over the past five years tennis shoes2 have taken over the prime real estate in my closet. I’ve acquired an unnecessary assortment of Nikes and Ons and Pumas and other brands that Big Shoe subliminally steered me toward.
My wife suggested that I adopt a “one in/one out” tennis shoe inventory management system, but obviously that won’t work since each pair has a specific use and purpose, some for exercising, some for going out, some for lounging around, I don’t know it’s hard to explain and she doesn’t get it and anyway that’s not the point of all this.
The point is that Dick was wrong. We shouldn’t be assessing each other based on footwear, and we shouldn’t be feeding the Big Shoe machine. (He did have great shoes, though.)
These days I mostly skip shoes. Just socks — never barefoot, I’m not a caveman — usually the workout kind that I pull on as part of my morning charade of pretending I’ll exercise. (Don’t judge.)
Each week in Squirreled I’ll drop links to four stories. The goal is that each story will be (1) useful, relevant, weird or otherwise interesting, (2) off the beaten path of the internet, and (3) free to read. Also, the longer the story is, the more captivating it has to be to make the cut. We all have attention spans to manage.
This Week’s Links (click the headings)
The 20 happiest states in the country. What do Hawaii, Maryland and Nebraska have in common, besides three syllables and two ‘A’s? They’re the three happiest states in the nation, according to science (or at least WalletHub). By the way, if you live in West Virginia you should probably move.
The financial advice site recently aggregated data widely believed to be relevant to a person’s overall sense of contentment: mental health, money, sleep quality, weather, and more. The Mountain State scored at the very bottom, coming in 50th.
You really should get your kid a phone. Your 6th grader is right: you’re the worst! Just get her a phone already. A new study concludes that smartphones are an important way for kids to communicate and stay connected to the world, just like the rest of us addicts do. (If you don’t have the attention span to read an 88-page study there’s a summary here.)
The most consistent trend in our data is that kids with their own smartphones are healthier and better adjusted than kids without their own phones. The former are less likely than the latter to be depressed, to be isolated from in-person friendships, to be cyberbullied, to say they often lose their temper, and to experience numerous other harms. The reason is not socioeconomic; kids in wealthier homes are much less likely to have their own smartphone than kids in low-income homes.
The definitive home cleaning guide. Working from home has done wonders for my kitchen, basement and garage organization. If I have an important work project to finish, my junk drawer doesn’t stand a chance. And now the Good Housekeepers have given us procrastinators a comprehensive guide for how and when to clean all of your stuff, complete with charts and checklists.
Skip pre-rinsing your dirty dishes: Today's dishwashers and detergents make it unnecessary — and a waste of water and time! Enzymes in your dishwasher detergent actually work better when they can attach themselves to food particles.
The moon may be in trouble. I don’t want to alarm anybody but there’s a 2 billion pound asteroid headed toward the moon and we’re considering blowing it up with a nuclear weapon. Enjoy your day!
A new study by researchers from NASA lays out our options for avoiding this worst-case scenario. The authors assess multiple strategies for deflecting or destroying the asteroid before it can slam into the lunar surface. Their conclusion? It looks like blowing it up would be our best bet.
OK, back to work.
This is probably sexist so I’m hiding it in a footnote where only you and I can see it: this rule does not apply to women’s shoes. For some reason women’s shoes involve a broader array of styles, shapes and purposes that lend themselves to greater creativity and expression. They are an essential part of a woman’s outfit. Men’s shoes are dull by design.
Or “sneakers,” if you live in the Northeast; “gym shoes” if you’re around Chicago; "trainers” if you’re weird and/or European.
When the moon goes to 9 conference games, I'll care about the moon.