A Croc of Shoes

To anyone who think that it’s easy to have a love for shoes, I say FAH!

Summer has passed, and I now feel that I can talk about my experience with sandals without cringing.  I began the summer by wearing what are called thong sandals, but most people just refer to them as “flip-flops.”  Now, men would never understand the issue with said flip-flops, but women everywhere know that they’re a terrible invention.  Why?  Because the thong part, where you slide your feet in, cuts the top of your feet open, that’s why.  They irritate your feet and you either get blisters, cuts, or both.  And since it’s summer, your feet get sweaty and the cuts sting and it’s just a terrible situation all in the name of fashion.

I decided to eliminate this issue after a particularly nasty flip-flop incident in which my feet were cut open to the point of bleeding and then required topical antibiotics and band-aids.  I bought Crocs.  I bought slip on Crocs for $50.  And I LOVED THEM.  I loved them like no other shoe I had previously loved before.

Now, as much as I loved the Crocs, they’re terrible.  Be warned, as no one warned me.  Crocs are made of plastic and foam.  These are the opposite of organic materials.  Now, in the summer, you’re already sweaty.  Well, these lovely, non-breathable materials make your feet sweat even more than they already are.  I should mention here that my Crocs were slip on sandals and had a bit of a platform.  WHAT A STUPID IDEA.  My feet sweat and made my sandals slippery.  Do you know what happens when your feet are slippery on a platform?  That’s right, you fall off your shoes.

Now, it is as comical in real life as it sounds.  I would slip off one side of my sandals and they would, essentially, be sideways attached to my foot with the slip in part of the sandal all sideways and whatnot on my foot as well.  It looked, and let me stress this, ridiculous.  Also, hilarious.

However, you can see where falling off your shoes may cause some problems.  I was on vacation in Florida and while walking along a dock to board a boat to go on the gator tour, my friend Liz said to me “Please do not fall off of your shoes and into this water because I am not going in to save you.”  And it was a legitimate concern.  I am from New York.  We don’t have gators here.  We have snowbanks.  They do not live near docks that are four feet wide with no railings.  They do not eat you if you fall off of your shoes on said dock, lose your balance, and fall into the water.

I didn’t fall off of my shoes into the water at that point, but I fell off of them several more times during that sticky mess that was Florida.  And I was not exempt from the embarrassment in New York, either.  Throughout the summer, I looked ridiculous on those shoes at least once a week, at the MINIMUM.  Only now, in the fall, do I feel as though enough time has passed where I can laugh at the fact that a grown adult woman literally fell off of her slippery sandals.  Go ahead, laugh.  It’s funny.

All in all, I would say that I still love the Crocs, I probably won’t use them when it’s really sticky and humid outside anymore.  And if you’re going to get Crocs, get the ones that look like MaryJanes (not just because they share my name, but because they cover your entire foot) or the thong sandals that are not two inches above the ground.  Save yourself from falling off your shoes like I did.