It's all about the shoes

Let me make a couple of facts very plain: I'm no fashionista, nor do I care to follow fashion trends. Oh, there was a time in my past when I may have perused a copy of Vogue or Harper's Bazaar with a critical eye, and I still enjoy reading Go Fug Yourself, more for the occasional laugh than the fashion critique. Enter infants of the male persuasion with raging cases of GERD, not to mention teaching the under 10-crowd, and my take on clothing has quickly become a case study in form following function. There's also the fact that I can't bring myself to spend $50 on something that will eventually get contaminated with one of the 4 B's (barf, blood, bones or bathroom functions. It's just a factual hazard of having and working with children. It's not a matter of if it happens, it's just a matter of when.) As a result, my fashion sense has gravitated towards Wally-World/Second Hand store, with a dash of Old Navy thrown in there when I'm feeling a bit of the fashion bug.

Not only has my fashion sense gone in the toilet, but enter an overly healthy sense of individualism mixed with a dash of I-don't-care, and you know I do/wear what I like when I like as long as it's comfortable for me. Even in my fashion mag days and in college, I was never really one to follow the latest fashion. I will admit to twist-a-bead necklaces and other similar fashion trend disasters in my distant past (read: high school), but generally, they were the exception, not the rule.

While at the mountains, we were wearing out the kids checking out the sights and visited the Old Sautee Store. It has a really fascinating and interesting area where there are all kinds of clothing, farm implements, instruments, turn of the century (19th) canned good, and my kids' favorite, an old flip tin style moving picture machine that you can still watch for 5 cents. Me, I was interested in the shoes. They were fascinating.

I snapped several pictures, getting as close as I could, and still not managing to really get the shots I wanted. After several attempts in the dark and (obviously) dusty corner, I moved into the retail section to revisit the store of my youth. I was strangely disappointed. When I was younger, this store was an interesting combination of old world, Scandinavian style wool works and Appalachian crafts. This version of Old Sautee had little of that, and a lot of the new. T shirts, hiking gear, Life is Good miscellanea, and various styles of river shoes, flip flops and such.
Then, I saw them and inexplicably fell in love. I have eschewed these in the past, thinking them flat out ugly, uncomfortable looking, all the while speculating how much sweat they could produce. They looked like they would rub blisters at the drop of a hat and were the total antithesis of my idea of comfortable footwear. They were a repellent shade of pink, they were in a Mary Jane style, they were on sale (1/3 off), and they were going to be mine.

They are Crocs, they are hideous, and I love them.

Note: Apparently, there's quite the controversy regarding these shoes, both pro and con. I have no strong feelings one way or another about shoes. I *do* have strong feelings about the environment, the war in Iraq, the crisis in Darfur, conspicuous consumerism, rights of the individual and a host of other things. You see which made the blog, so, please don't make more of this than is intended.