Can you believe this weather? Feels like summer already!
God help us. The flip-flops are coming.
What’s wrong with flip-flops?
Are we at the beach?
No.
Then everything.
I’m not sure I follow.
What is a situation in which you would wear flip-flops?
While walking around.
In public?
Sure.
Like a boy king! Prince of leisure!
What?
What gives you the impression everyone wants to see your feet?
Why wouldn’t they?
Feet are inherently unattractive.
Not mine. Anyway, no one needs to look. For me, it’s more of a comfort thing.
How do you know you won’t be walking long distances?
You choose the flip-flop when you’ll be walking some, but not a lot. Casual walking.
But you can’t know that ahead of time. Who knows what turns your day might take? What if someone suggests a spur-of-the-moment hike?
You tell them you can’t because you’re wearing flip-flops, or you just go on the hike.
So your flip-flops either ruin someone’s plan, because your decision to wear foam wafers on your feet instead of proper footwear means you can’t go on an excursion with them, or you go on a hike with podiatrically suboptimal equipment.
Yeah, I guess. How many people do you know to suggest spur-of-the-moment hikes?
One never knows who one might meet, or what they’ll want to do.
Okay, so you head off in your car, wearing flip-flops, bound for a place where you definitely won’t be called upon to walk much, where you’ll meet with the sort of friend who definitely won’t suggest a spur-of-the-moment hike. What if your car breaks down on the way there and you need to walk miles to a gas station?
Don’t I have a phone to call for roadside assistance?
Your cell phone battery is dead. Adapt!
Flag down a driver of a passing vehicle for help?
A certain proportion of passing motorists are murderers. But okay, a non-murderer with a charged phone battery stops to help you. Upon noticing your flip-flops, the non-murderer is so repulsed by your feet that he hops back into his car and drives away. Adapt! You need to walk, and the nearest gas station is miles away. What do you do?
Um, okay. I guess I’d keep a pair of shoes in my trunk just in case.
Why wear a piece of footwear that necessitates lugging a different piece of footwear around with you to make up for the first piece of footwear’s shortcomings? Why not just have one piece of footwear?
Did something bad happen to you when you were wearing flip-flops as a kid or something?
I never wore flip-flops as a child. But now that you mention it, I did pull a tree-shaped ceramic stocking hanger off of a windowsill onto my bare foot at home one Christmastime. It left a tree-shaped bruise in blue and green that didn’t go away for weeks.
And you’ve been wearing shoes ever since?
At home and abroad, from sun-up to sundown. Also, I steer clear of ceramic stocking hangers.
Right.
Okay, so you’re standing around in your flip-flops, not walking much. What if someone mugs you and you have to give chase?
You can run in flip-flops, if needed.
Not safely.
Kick them off and run barefoot, then.
So you’ll voluntarily wear a thing that, far from helping you, so handicaps you that you’ll have to dispose of it just to not be at a disadvantage if something unexpected happens. You might as well walk around with bowling balls strapped to your torso, too.
Anyway, how likely is it that someone would mug me?
Extremely, because you’re wearing flip-flops. You’re like a sitting duck. It’s as if you’re wearing a sign that says “I have forsaken vigilance and will be unable to give chase.”
There’s also a class element to this.
Flip-flops are hardly high-end goods.
But look at what they signify: My life is comfortable and under my control. I can afford so many pieces of footwear that not all of them need even serve a utilitarian function. My feet are presentable, even admirable: Look, everyone! I am untouchable. I’m so sure you won’t rob me that I’ll handicap myself – and, if robbed, what you take will be so easily replaceable by me that I’ll have no reason to give chase. Life dares not surprise me. My car won’t break down. My phone battery won’t be dead. A passing motorist will not be a murderer. I will not be called upon to walk long distances or otherwise exert myself. If a walking-intensive invitation is suddenly extended, I can turn it down at no great loss: I have all the friends I need, and can risk offending a few.
It’s a very bourgeoisie thing, the flip-flop-wearer’s worldview.
Taking this a bit far, aren’t you? I bet even you go barefoot at home sometimes.
Bite your tongue!