Tag: Humor

Goober shoes

Published on by NouveauSoileau5 Comments

I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about shoes. Hey — don’t judge. It doesn’t hurt anybody, and looking at shoes online, looking at other peoples’ shoes, and mentally upgrading the shoe wardrobes of others give me something to do while I’m waiting in the doctor’s office, driving, or otherwise without mental stimulation.

So I’d like to go on record with the startling information that I absolutely loathe a trend shoe of the moment — the Sketcher Shape Up and its attendant clones.

This horror represents the apex of the goober shoe movement, which began innocently enough back in the sixties, I believe, with the introduction of the Birkinstock. Germans and others schlumped along in these things for years without much notice, and then sometime in the ’90s they became popular in the U.S. and suddenly everyone looked like Jesus, but with arch support. I myself endorse Birkinstocks and have two pairs of them — but I’m not saying they’re adorable or anything. I call them “serviceable chique” and will argue their merits to my dying day.

Same with Dansko clogs. Or, as I initially called them, Frankenstein shoes. These thick-soled numbers were favored for years by chefs and surgeons until, again, the general public caught on and they began popping up all over the place. I shalt not hate on the Dansko either for, like the Birkinstock, I have several pairs. I might even have a custom-designed pair with sunflowers on them. Maybe.

So that brings us to Crocs, those giant, rubber/plastic cloggie monstrosities that are so comfortable that I think that we shall never, ever be rid of them. They are too beloved by grannies and jammie-wearing Wal-Mart shoppers. The knock-offs are everywhere. Mercy, they are comfortable and yes, I do own several pairs. Mainly I wear them around the house, as slippers. Fortunately, they do offer some saner designs, which I can wear without spitting up in my mouth a little. How’s that for a ringing endorsement?

Crocs cemented the goober shoe movement and I maintain, Sketcher Shape Ups sealed the deal. We may never be able to go back to a sane world where people routinely wear Evan Picone pumps and black wing-tips like God intended.

But back to the Sketchers. I will never forget  my first sighting — on an ad in the subway station in New York City. It was August 2009 and I gasped aloud.

My eyes darted around the subway car. Not a Sketcher in sight. And then … and then: I spotted them. A trendy New Yorker, power-walking down the boulevard, her poor feet clad in Sketchers. I knew it was all over. “Oh no! No, no, no!” I remember thinking “It’s here in New York! In two or three years they’ll be wearing these things in Kentucky!”

And so they are. They’re everywhere. I saw knock-offs in Target. People in my walking park are polluting the pathways. And just this week, I saw them in a place I least expected it. In church. Yes, at Mass. On the feet of … I can barely bring myself to say it … the priest.

So now you know. The Goober Shoe Movement is irrevocably here. If a man of God who most often wears black feels the Shape-Up is for him, we can only conclude that footwear as we know it will never, ever be the same again.

I’m sorry, Father — truly, I am. Can I interest you in this stunning pair of wing-tips, though? I hear they’re all the rage at the Vatican.

* * *

I know what you all are thinking and you can just stop it right now. Just because I tried on a pair — just to make sure it didn’t like them, mind you — doesn’t mean at thing. A THING, I tell you.

Somewhere, some Birkinstock executive is laughing.

We have a 2319

Published on by NouveauSoileau3 Comments

If you’re like me and have children, you’ve seen most Disney movies approximately 3,298 times each. In addition, you probably foresee a future when you watch one Pixar offering or another at least another dozen times or so before it’s retired and the kiddoes have moved on to MTV, Horders, slasher flicks or some other horror that passes for popular entertainment.

But some of us are still squarely in the Cars, Up, Finding Nemo, and Monsters Inc. phase. With each repeated viewing, the dialogue becomes ever more cemented in we, the adults,’ consciousness and with alarming frequency, we start quoting them as we go about our daily lives.

To take an example from television, any form of agreement is now rendered, in my house, as “Yes. Yes I am,” a la Phineas from each episode of Phineas and Ferb on the Disney Channel. “Aren’t you a little young to be building a nuclear reactor?” he’ll be asked. “Yes. Yes I am.”

Similarly, we went through an intensive few years when Trassie was addicted to the Disney/Pixar feature Cars. At one point Mater, the grungy tow-truck voiced by Larry the Cable Guy, is asked if he’s got his tow cable. “Well yeah, I’ve always got mah tow-cable,” he answers. Now, if anyone is asked if they’ve got a particularly something with them … purse, car keys, water bottle, whatever … the answer is always, “Well, yeah, I’ve always got my tow cable.”

Which brings us to Monsters Inc., a general favorite and in heavy rotation a few years ago. If you recall the movie, you’ll remember that it’s a huge plot point when the scream factory is contaminated with an artifact of the human world. A sock returns to Monster World with a monster just fresh from a kid’s closet. Immediately there is a shut-down on par with a nuclear core meltdown. Decontamination experts are dropped from the ceiling. It’s a 2319!!

Much to our amusement, the address of the local elementary school which Christopher attended for one year and where now Trassie is a kindergartner is 2319.

Yes, sirree. The location that is filled to the brim with children, those toxic beings of Monsters Inc. The individuals who could bring Monster World to its knees, to quote the movie, merely with their mind powers are contained each day within a school at street address 2319.

This amuses us to no end … and often, when we take one child or another over there, it is just impossible not to say, “We have a 2319! 2319!”

It helps if you can make your voice sound like it’s being broadcast over a PA system.

“2319! 2319! Bye kids, have a great day! If anyone tries to run from you, don’t pick them up with your mind powers, now, and shake them like a dog!”

Spot the comatose teenager

Published on by NouveauSoileau4 Comments

Over the weekend, my 13-year-old son, Christopher, spent the night out at a friend’s where, predictably, they stayed up most of the night playing video games.

This leads to the Sunday-afternoon phenomenon known as Zombie Teen.

When you let your son or daughter spend the night with a friend when he or she is, say, 8, what you get the next day is Psycho Kid. This monster resembles your darling child only physically; and then, only remotely so — you don’t recall such vast black circles beneath the eyes of said child only a day earlier. And in disposition, oh my no. This new being is grouchy beyond any conceivable normal limits. The snarling anger and immediate dissolve-into-tears the instant Things Don’t Go My Way is completely off the charts. You question why you let them go in the first place. An evening’s peace? So. Not. Worth. It.

Then they get a little age on them and, while generally a cantankerous lot, teenagers who are sleep-deprived are dreamcicles compared to the tired versions of their former selves when they return from an overnight with a friend.

No, the returning teen is a comatose teen, droopy eyed and lethargic — until the inevitable moment when he or  she starts to sink into (in this case) the couch and is rendered nearly completely invisible.

Can't see him no how

Please excuse the untidiness. This is my living room, den, all-purpose room, playroom, and partial office. A lot goes on here. A lot of stuff gets dropped here.

Think of it as camouflage.

Where’s the sunken kid?

Ah, there he is. Melted into the couch.

Amazing, isn’t it? Television a-blarin.’ Computer beeping. Music playing. Oblivious. Oblivious he is, the youngster operating on three hours of sleep. He knows nothing but the slump and the slumber, deep in his beige cocoon.

There he blended, until suppertime, when the only other thing known to drive children of this age springs into action — the promise of food. Since I’d planned a balanced meal, the pull was not quite as forceful as say, junk food or McDonald’s. But it did propel him back into the land of the living.

I just hope I don’t lose him again. Good thing we’ve got the maroon blanket — he might have stayed gone for good.

Hm.

Good things come to those who wait

Published on by NouveauSoileau2 Comments

If you’ve been checking here periodically, waiting desperately for new witticisms that never come, you have my sincere thanks and, of course, my sympathy.

It’s been a pathetically long time since a new post has darkened this blog’s door. But fear not! Things are going to look lively around here soon.

So please, until then — enjoy the Two Headed Boy.

He loves you and wants to make you happy.