Shoes

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My tennis shoes have finally exploded, literally coming apart at the seams, the heel padding worn down to the plastic. My dress shoes have worn through the rubber soles so that if I walk through a puddle, my feet get wet. So it's time to get new shoes. I resist getting new shoes because they destroy my feet. Every time I get a new pair of dress shoes, even nicely padded Rockports with rubber soles and air-cushions, they chew up my feet for about a week, threatening to wear right through the Achilles tendon, leaving my foot hanging off my ankle, useless. So even if the shoes look like they were handed out with the soup and bedrolls, I tend to wait. And wait.

But now, the old shoes were turning my feet into hamburger, so there was no point in waiting. And it was off to Famous Footwear. At this point, pretty much the only criterion I have for shoes is that they not be made in China. I need something comfortable for walking, something dressy, and something not made at gunpoint by people whose kids went to the wrong protest. I don't care if the workers are getting 12 cents an hour. That's almost certainly better than the going rate for child prostitutes. When the country can afford to unionize and outlaw child labor, it won't need to.

So I did manage to find a pair of sneakers, or athletic shoes, or whatever they're called these days, that are comfortable and made in Indonesia. So maybe I'm even keeping a future terrorist off the streets. The dress shoes - Italian, which is a nice little market-signal sop to the Only European Politician Worth a Damn, Silvio Berlusconi. And now that I can concentrate again, back to work.