Flip Flops and Faith

My faith in humanity is restored! I’ve been reading about the outrageous prices that fashion victims are paying for what really are just plain old flip flops. I mean they are encrusted with all kinds of fancy schmancy stuff including, can you believe it, semi-precious stones and they can run you into a couple of major bills on Rodeo Drive. They are also a “thing” now with the young who seem to think, along with pomegranate juice, they were invented just for them. (I have no idea why p-juice popped into my head, it just did.) Flip flops are now a “lifestyle” and a symbol of a certain way of life. I even have friends in Florida who own a set of salt and pepper shakers shaped like flip flops. Not too hard to believe, right?

I’ve been wearing flip flops for decades and they have been one of the things that has remained consistent in my “wardrobe,” if you can even think of them in that term. I mean they are rubber, the straps are rubber, they are all one color and they have always been somewhere in the $1 to $2 range. It seems like they were always made in China or, at least, some place Asian. They were called go-aheads and thongs as well as flip flops but, of course, the noise they make when you’re walking gives “flip flops” an onomatopoeic cachet and we all know how important that is.

Anyway, my current pair are almost worn out and, although I paid some extravagant sum for them in San Juan, PR, they haven’t lasted any longer than the cheapos you can buy right out of the bins in those bargain shops scattered hither and yon. In my defense I bought these expensive ones (I think they were about $8) because I stumbled across a Speedo store in Old San Juan and you always have to pay for a “Brand” and, as my friends will attest to, I’m quite the Speedo loyalist for various reasons.

I think the ones before these I also paid a tad more for, maybe $3 or $4, but that was at the Old Navy store and I was totally drawn to the cunning way they were displayed. And, too, the colors were the new “designer” shades we all dig; the ones with which we paint one wall of a room in our modern apartments (ahem). I know, I know, it’s kind of odd I can remember when and where I bought my flip flops but, as I said, they wear out pretty fast so it’s no great feat.

So, yesterday, when I went to the drugstore to fill a prescription I noticed a flip-flop bin-of-iniquity and, right on top, there was a nice gray pair in my size. $1.99, plus tax. What a coup! Humanity! Faith! Restored!