Coffee Brake: Shoe Shopping With Kaibeezy
Time for DT’s Coffee Brake, a break from the mundane, by Editor Vince: A few weeks ago I had chance to spend some time DT’s resident logo guru Kaibeezy. For reasons that escape me (and I cautiously neglected to inquire) Kaibeezy was without shoes, or at least without sneakers. So, we went shopping.
The first store we wandered into was one of those sports equipment mega stores — let’s call it Small-6 for the sake of anonymity. Anyway, a short hike past the rows of camping gear and we were greeted by a wall of shoes. At least they looked shoe-like.
A pimply faced millennial approached us.
“Hi, can I help you find a shoe?”
“Yes” replied KBZ “I’d like something like a Puma Clyde.”
“mmmm”
“Its a 70’s basketball sneaker.”
“hmmm…”
It wasn’t the fault of the kid making minimum wage that he didn’t understand the request, because he certainly wasn’t born when Clyde Frazier got a shoe endorsement from Puma back in the early 1970s.
We wander aimlessly past racks of shoes that look like they were designed for travel on the moon and sourced from the lowest cost vendor that some shortsighted buyer could find in Chinda.
Me: “Let’s get outta here before I end up buying one of those $13 tents…because nothing is worse than disposable camping gear”.
KBZ: “Done”
The next store we entered was a shoe focused mega store and their “men’s” section seemed to be focused to hiking-styled shoes that would be great for someone trying to look the REI life style on a Harbor Freight budget…but that certainly wasn’t going to be the thing for Kaibeezy.
The last store we entered was an outlet for a major mega chain…let’s call it Stromnords Rack. Shoes and clothes littered the store…had there been an earthquake or major disaster and we missed it?
KBZ: “How would it ever be acceptable to put this one my foot?”
Vince: “Maybe if you wanted something to match your VW Golf Harlequin?”
A while later I found a pair of shoes that cost $450, but were marked down from $950 retail. Wow.
Finally, KBZ settled on a pair of acceptable sneakers (the make model escapes me, and it really isn’t important to this story) but they weren’t hideous, crazy expensive, or covered in fur. It took way longer than expected, but now he needed socks…
Is there a point to this story? Maybe. Maybe it is a dissection of the miserable experience that is shopping in the 21st century — clothes shopping, shoe shopping, or car shopping. Or maybe it is just a story about a man who didn’t want to be barefoot.
reasons – my certainty that people were smirking at my barefoot wiggle-toe natural-stride walk-like-an-ape-on-the-savanna shoes, which have the advantage of being very thin and easily wedged into an international roll-aboard (not rollerboard, yeesh)
acceptable – plain blue low-cut K-Swiss
I've been on a Made in the USA kick lately and just ordered a pair of these Harry Lew Signatures
[image src=" cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1399/0755/products/Colchester_AW-6_1296x.jpg" width="400px"/]
I had a chance to open the door to Jason Paul Pierre's show closet as he was selling his house down here and I was looking at it to buy, not knowing it was his home. But, the sheer volume of unworn Nike high tops assembled in this one small room was astounding to me, for none of them had ever been worn and there must have been hundreds of them. All different colors and patterns and styles but all the same size. I didn't buy the house and I'm not saying if I may have a new pair of gold foil and purple plaid Nikes in my own closet now.
One of the best books I've read over the last several years was Collections of Nothing, written by a professor of something or other about his unrelated mania to collect and classify, like, bean can labels. The cover photo is from his taxonomic survey of security envelope printed interior patterns. (Hey Vince, put up a link that connects to your Amazon affiliate dealio.)
Imagine what CFlo would do with Volvos, if he lived in a defunct drive-in movie theater on the outskirts of Tucson. Ping me offline if you'd like to see photos of my parking meter door sampler or every expired credit card I've ever held, minus the ones I've made into guitar picks with this cool punch my kids got me.