![\"My](\"http:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/newshoe.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHere’s a photo of what arguably is the most compelling conversation piece in the history of pieces of conversation:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
No, not the sock – although shark socks definitely haven’t yet jumped the you-know-what. It’s the shoe, seen here in fashionable out-of-focus fashion (hey, you try taking a surreptitious photo with your phone in Sunday School while pretending to pay attention to the lesson*).<\/p>\n
I bought this shoe (and another one remarkably similar that goes on my other foot) last weekend in Denton, at the DSW shoe store. I’ve worn it – along with its partner because otherwise, that would be weird – three times since then, and on all three occasions they’ve elicited public comments in great disproportion to the significance that should normally accrue to new footwear.<\/p>\n
I probably have only myself to blame. Apart from athletic models and Manly Footwear<\/a>, I tend to buy shoes roughly every 30 years, whether I need them or not. Seriously, I haven’t bought a pair of dress shoes since around 1980.<\/p>\n I do tend to buy good quality shoes on those rare occasions that I reluctantly acquire them. My last few pair were solid, if decidedly non-flashy** Johnston & Murphy wingtips, which cost around $120, if I recall correctly. Now, in inflation-adjusted dollars<\/a>, that’s about $345 today, and in my opinion, anyone that pays $345 for dress shoes has more dollars than sense, if you know what I mean. [Note: Boots are a totally different matter, and are not to be judged on the same basis.] Rest assured that these shoes did not<\/b> cost $345.<\/p>\n Given the hubbub over these new shoes, I’m very cautious about revealing that during that jaunt to DSW, I actually bought a second pair. I’m just not sure the universe is ready.<\/p>\n *Not really, Mike. I was paying attention. We were in Ezekiel. Or Habakkuk. It was definitely the OT, well before the invention of wingtips.<\/p>\n **Unless you’re a practitioner of the actuarial sciences or a funeral director, then you’ll think they totally rock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here’s a photo of what arguably is the most compelling conversation piece in the history of pieces of conversation: No, not the sock – although shark socks definitely haven’t yet jumped the you-know-what. It’s the shoe, seen here in fashionable out-of-focus fashion (hey, you try taking a surreptitious photo with your phone in Sunday School… Continue reading The shoe must go on<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fashion","category-just-plain-silly","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=999"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12851,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/999\/revisions\/12851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}