If you’re a person on Earth, maybe you’ve noticed it is very hot. I know scientists have noticed!
Every year, when it gets hot, I think about flip flops.
I hate flip flops.
In high school, in spite of my various emulations of Marissa Cooper and Summer Roberts, I made a rule for myself: no flip flops.
This was an attempt at rebelling against conventional 2005 fashion at the time. And probably my own internalized hatred of my own feet. I have held strong. And then, as it is now, I really can’t stand seeing anyone’s feet.
I don’t want to see yours.
I don’t want you to see mine.
These days, I can easily make a timely joke about not showing toes for free. Let it be known that I support any and all people who are holding back showing toes on main in favor of getting their bag.
But back to flip flops – my feelings are nuanced! There are levels to this shit! Somehow, if I see a foot in an open-toed mule or slide, I am somehow less repulsed than if said foot were flapping about in a flip flop. After nearly a decade in New York City, it has become less driven by aesthetics and more driven by the idea that a panoply of mysterious liquids and bodily fluids is slapping one’s heel with every syncopated smack of the heel of that flip flop. The name FLIP FLOP is itself a grotesque onomatopoeia.
I know what you’re thinking: this sounds like a lot of energy to put towards hating a shoe Old Navy worked so hard to make us all love!!!
And I am here to explain that this, like any story of unbridled hate, is complicated by glimpses of affection. Every now and again, something will happen to make me wish I could be the ultimate free-wheeling flip flop wearer. The subtext of the choice alone would signal to everyone that I am not physically prepared for anything, yet psychically ready for anything!
A few weeks ago, walking up Lafayette Street, I noticed a woman who looked impeccably chic. Even though I am a woman who wears shrimp print dresses and Winston cigarette t-shirts, I can still recognize a person of taste. She was talking on the phone (iPhone up to her ear, no Airpods. Like I said, CHIC). I took in her full silhouette, the hem of her gauzy white linen dress gently billowing behind her as if to suggest a train was going to snail behind her. When I got to the south of her ankles, I saw them: flip flops. In an instant, I had a change of heart.
‘Maybe flip flops aren’t so bad! Look how effortless and elegant they can be!’ I thought.
My focus shifted to her face. The woman was Nicky Hilton.
A milky white pedicure and a nice linen dress and a billion-heiress almost made me flip flop on flip flops.