Flip Flops

Summer has made an early visit to the streets of New York City and, as I write this, office squid such as myself are flocking to Bryant Park and Madison Square Park and Central Park to lay in the sun and gossip for an hour before heading back to the cubicles that hide us from the light for 8-11 hours at a stretch. This all makes me very happy. Happy enough that as I rode my bike to work today, zipping through traffic on 8th Avenue at 7:45am, I actually found myself smiling . . . And its only Tuesday.

But there is one blemish on the face of this fine weather that I cannot ignore . . . The bold insistence of people to wear flip flops as they traipse around this dirty city. On the subway, at the bar, (at work!!), with jeans, without a shower, with seeping blisters, with yellowed nails and without a conscious, people young and old ignore the fact that their feet are foul. And I just cannot take it anymore . . .

Even as I try to reason with myself and think, “Feet are just a part of the body” I cannot get over this fear and loathing. I hate feet, and have for as long as I can remember as, in my mind, they are the effluvium of dirt, sweat and toil. They are the lowest part of our bodies for a reason and I rue the day that they became so mercilessly ubiquitous. To be fair, I have no problem with flip flops while making a trek to the beach (although I choose to wear low top Chuck Taylors during my own beach visits) but while walking down 34th Street (or in the halls of 4 Times Square) they are simply an abomination and an affront to good taste.

Due to my strong feelings on the subject, and my unwillingness to dwell to long on it because frankly I hate even thinking about feet, this may be one of my least elegant missives but I just had to get it out . .