So, I'm not really a manly man... I'm fine with this. One male tradition that I'm ok with and practice, is shining my shoes. I haven't done this in a long while though because my dress shoes have been new-ish for a while and the ones before this pair had a pattern in the leather, thus you couldn't use polish on them.
We didn't have shoe polish in the house. I asked my parents to buy some, and they bought this liquid shoe shine crap. The shoe market has been flooded lately with special cloths and buffers and sprays which are supposed to shine your shoes.... NO, they don't. They coat your shoes with some kind of pussy ass oil that makes them look shiny because you're high off the fumes.
On principle, I refused to use this on my nice shoes. At a shoe store, I was assured that it would indeed would shine the shoes and fill in the little cracks like a polish would. The shoe lady then took the shoe to demonstrate, and did a poor job of trying... only gunking up and subsequently dimming what shine there had been on my shoes. I was not amused.
Tonight, lo and behold, a container of shoe polish appeared on the table! It took me 10 minutes to wash off all that shoe liquid gunk which seemed to keep seeping from everywhere on everything and ew.
Nevertheless, I sat on the couch for 15 minutes shining the hell out of the toes of my dress shoes and they look a might fine!!! When I need them for a performance or something, I'll finish the other parts that I want to be shiny and all will be spiffy!
Im realising now that shoe shining is probably the least redeeming example I could use for my manliness, or lack thereof. oh well, thats just the type of man I am.
2 comments:
These so-called "pussy ass sprays, buffing cloths" and the like sound interesting.
And certainly more convenient than something that dirties your fingers. And certainly less time consuming for the average person who doesn't really care to put time and/or effort into the tradition of shoe shining.
If only there were an establishment that sold these wonderful, time-saving products at a reasonable price as well as shoes that are not only fashionable but functional...
If there were, I would certainly enjoy paying less for them.
If one is to pay less, one should expect to get less.
If one is only willing to put in minimal effort, then they will get only a superficial result.
Quality really has a strong relation to cost, and not just materially. It is a fault to our social conditioning to 'price watching' that we convince ourselves that you can in fact get something better for cheaper, but really, it comes through the removal of the concept of Value from products and service.
Post a Comment