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Bad shoe days happen even to prospective presidents of superpowers. Take President Barack Obama, for instance.
While he was campaigning for his first term in 2008, Obama was photographed seated, feet atop a desk, with shoes showing signs of wear and tear on the soles.
The picture, which went viral, was captioned, “shoe leather politics”.
I am sure POTUS now has a full “shoeroom” in the White House. And I am talking shoes whose soles are as good as new. What with the Beast, Airforce One and Marine One at his beck and call.
So, if you are a man with shoes’ issues, take courage. I do not know about POTUS, though, but I know there are two types of men: those with one or two pairs of shoes, and those who are giving Bata a run for its money.
Men who own a couple of pairs of shoes mostly buy a new one when they are compelled by need.
Need here refers to shoe theft. Or utter deterioration that the cobbler can no longer fix. Or it could be a wife who has had it, and has decided to take the purchase of a new pair into her own hands.
Do not get it twisted: men who live on one pair of shoe at a time are not necessarily scrooges. The profiles ran the whole gamut: from college professors, to paupers, to everyone in between.
If you see a motorist buying a pair of shoe in a Kencom traffic jam, that is probably a one-pair dude who is too busy to spare a minute to visit Shoe Palace.
Here is the trick, guys. If you are going to have just two pair of shoes, let them be leather stunners. Let them be dual-purposes pieces; shoes that can serve you decently in official and casual situations. And keep it basic.
It would be better if one pair is black and the other is brown. Treat your leathers well, and you will be treated like royalty.
Shoe freaks are from a different planet. While the rest of us are satisfied with a pair, they will, for instance, have wingtips in four different colors. And their spending habits can only be decoded by the likes of Dr. Phil.
The other day, I read on the internet about a woman who was bemoaning her shoe freak husband’s splurging ways.
The sneaker head blew away their mortgage money on two pairs of Yeezy Boosts, which went for a total of 200,000 bob.
When asked, he replied coolly, “One’s for the stock and the other is to rock”.
Even for guys who have racks filled with shoes, there is always a pair or two, the most beloved, which get to see all the action in town.
That is the ironic flip-side of being a shoe freak; the more they are, the narrower the wearing options.
Shoes cannot be taken for test drives.
Which means that, many times, men end up with shoes that fall apart at the soles after a couple of uses.
And so, the planned obsolescence cycle continues, and the winner is mali-kwa-mali, the local barter trade guy.
Kenya is a copycat country. That is why all the exhibitions in the CBD stock the same type of shoes.
For a man who wants to stand out, the choice can be going the second-hand route, shopping online or sending a trusted friend who is travelling out of the country to grab you a pair of that cherished Salvatore Ferragamo plain toe Oxford.
Men buy shoes on impulse. It is in our DNA. That is why you will find hawkers, carrying bundles of shoes, filing in and out of bars.
Yes, we know the problem with such purchases is that, while under the influence — (of alcohol of football fanaticism) — we are more likely to be sold a defective product, taken to the cleaners or, when we sober up, we will go, “What was I thinking?”
We know the bummer is, with such purchases, there is no “exchange clause”.
But, pardon us; it is in our DNA.
We are armchair quarterbacks. We are political analysts. And we buy shoes on impulse.
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