RIP, Glitter Flops
Posted by Moose on August 13th, 2007. Filed under: Adventures.Last week was not a stellar one for the flip flop population of the world.
Last week also proved that Target is the last place one should ever purchase shoes they expect to protect their feet from the elements. By elements, I mean 22nd St. Including the corner used as an office by all the tranny hookers in the neighborhood. Standing barefoot on that corner, waiting for the light to change so I could continue my scamper toward disinfectant was an experience I don’t care to repeat. Ever.
I bought the above pink and black pair of flip flops at Target. For $3.50 a pair, I wasn’t expecting miracles, but I was expecting to get more than seven blocks from my house the first time I wore them before they disintegrated. The pink pair, worn for the first time during the bastard cat episode and subjected to an undue amount of stress during the collarless dog take down (where I bodily wrestled the dog to the cement to keep her from eating the bastard cat who had just pawed six new holes in my hand, who totally deserved to be eaten and, cat, you owe me flip flops and antiseptic), that pair lasted me one whole block before the top popped out of the sole. I had to hop the last few steps to my door, where I changed into shoes that wouldn’t glimpse the light of day and promptly expire.
After the pink patent flip flop episode of late July, I gave Target and its crappy flops the benefit of the doubt, thinking perhaps I got a defective pair. That both pairs were marked down to less than you’d spend for a small mocha was a fact I chose to ignore. Target just needed the room for new merchandise, the rock bottom price couldn’t possibly signal defective merchandise. No. I believe in the power of the sale and I was not ready to relinquish my pinching, Scroogeish ways on such meager proof.
On Thursday, my desire to laud Target and the sale took a major hit. I found myself on 20th and Valencia St., two blocks from the coffee shop where I was hauling my laptop for a satisfyingly productive day of freelance work, one which had the potential to double (DOUBLE!) my cash flow of the week (which was, at that point, about $50). And my black flip flops (the Target blood sisters of the pink, the ones I had never worn before) celebrated their christening by falling apart. The right shoe was still clinging to a thread, but the left would not stay on my foot, in spite of all my begging. Begging fueled by the regularity with which men casually pee on the streets.
After realizing that my shoe was not going to stay on my foot and I was going to have to limp home bare foot, I sat down on a handy stoop. I squinched up my eyes, wrinkled my nose, and and valiantly tried to sprout wings. I might even have been reduced to bargaining. “They don’t have to be dragon wings or even eagle wings, they can be pigeon wings…. Please?” I checked the back of my tank top. Nada. God didn’t even make a rubber band appear within hopping distance so I could strap the errant shoe to my foot.
So I walked slowly home, scanning the sidewalk for needles and wondering how concrete could retain so many questionable stains. I hoped fervently that any disease even now making its way through the soles of my bare feet and up my legs was one that could be easily treated with antibiotics. Cheap antibiotics, because my current insurance is considerably less forgiving of staph infection than my former (employed) insurance.
If you’re ever seduced by Target’s cheap selection of flip flops, REMEMBER THE MOOSE:
(Look at those unblemished soles. Oh, it kills me.)
But the flip flop week of infamy had not yet spent itself. Yesterday I left the house in my favorite white flip flops. The ones on the masthead up there, the ones that have lent a fetching sparkle to my feet for almost three years. Did I mention they were my favorites? Do you sense the impending doom? I sure didn’t. I naively assumed I was safe because these shoes had served me faithfully and, more importantly, weren’t from Target. But two blocks from the dog park, the beglittered side popped out of the sole. I just stared at my feet in utter bemusement before limping home like Quasimodo with a club foot.
Mercury is in retrograde and I need to go shoe shopping.
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August 13th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Dude!! that sucks. three in a row like that?!
well, you like shoe shopping, right?
August 13th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
The only flip flops I wear are the free ones with a pedicure. The little ladies laugh when I bring them back to reuse them (doing my part to keep shoes from landfill!!). But they seem to have more staying power than your target ones. So who is laughing now, huh?
August 13th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
i couldn’t kill my pair of old navy flip flops if I tried… and they were just as cheap…
MB would argue that flip flops are a disgrace and if you MUST wear them to spend less time in the nail shop and more time helping in the kitchen as sous chef – well… OK…
and mere… what is she good for if not a little salt in the wound…
the last pair I bought was from a nail shop – they were havaianas http://www.havaianasus.com/ and they pretty much rock.
maybe it would be a possible source of income to carry a sign that says “will work for flip-flops” ?
August 13th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
I hate flip flops. I want to like them, I do. But it feels like my foot is getting the Heimlich Maneuver every time I step. But I’m sorry for your losses anyway.
August 14th, 2007 at 4:31 am
Flipflop death SUCKS, dude!
Thought I have to say, I bought a few pairs of Target flipflops with grommets in the straps, and I’ve only lost one pair in three years. Then again, they cost at least $7, so maybe that’s the key?
Anyway, happy shopping for new flips!
August 14th, 2007 at 6:25 am
Oh, I can’t imagine either of my 2 favorite pairs dying. I have had them for far too long, they are black though so they look the same as the year I bought them…I’ve tried to replace them but it’s just not possible.
August 14th, 2007 at 7:28 am
I hope you reinforce your next pair with a hot glue gun.
(Wait. Would that melt the shoe?)
(If it did, I suppose that would be fine, because it would solidify the plastic.)
(So, yes, definitely use a hot glue gun.)
August 14th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Having to shoe shop is at least a tarnished silver lining, right?
August 14th, 2007 at 9:33 am
I share your pain! I also bought a cheap pair of sandals last month at Target, to wear while engaging in outdoor camping activities for a weekend. (I arrived to discover I left my expensive good sandals at home, so grabbed them from a convenient Target sale rack.) Granted, it was a very HOT weekend and I did pour water on my feet in an attempt to stay cool, but they nearly killed me. I thought I was rubbing a blister on my heel, but it the weekend was almost over and I thought I was just being a baby about it. I ended up with an enormous blister covering my ENTIRE heel!! I’ve never seen anything like it! I was off my feet for nearly a week trying to heal up.
Boo, cheap Target sandals!
August 14th, 2007 at 10:18 am
I can never even find! Target sandals in my size. Damn gargantuan feet. (I’m really only a size 10/10 1/2, but they NEVER have them.)
August 14th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
What a tale of woe….3 pair. On the other hand, that leaves an open space for more shoe shopping as well as a fun blog to read.
I noticed one pair was from China – some problems we’re having with goods from that country – toys, etc. Perhaps putting big rubber bands in your pockets or purse would be a safety measure.
August 14th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
That’s so sad! Three down in one week, and homeless piss and needles to walk through. I had a pair of Old Navy ones that I got last year decide to give up the ghost in Boston a few weeks ago. They didn’t fall apart, they just stopped having any sort of traction and I almost fell down in the rain approximately 6500 times, and finally made my husband trade with me so that he could almost fall 5000 times. Proof, I guess, that Old Navy ain’t built to last.
August 14th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
if you can’t duckit…. fuck it…
really, that sucks thou, we need to invent the flipflop that will stand the test of time. this is going to involve carbon fiber, titanium and above all else. lot of glitter!
August 16th, 2007 at 9:34 am
I don’t even understand the break in the pink ones…they must have used dissoluble thread. It doesn’t make engineering sense.
Personally, I can’t wear flip-flops. I feel like they’re slowly splitting my big toe from its fellow piggies. Also, I have freakishly long toes that hang over the front. Sigh.
August 17th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Yew have street cooties! Ew!
I have them on my HANDS from boot camp. How gross is that? Maybe you could sue Target for personal suffering, since the loss of three pairs of shoes counts as catastrophic in my book.
August 18th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
More disturbing than the shoddily-made flip flops themselves is the fact that their disintegration caused you to walk barefoot in tranny hooker central. I would not have been above applying Purell to my feet right there.
August 23rd, 2007 at 10:26 am
I found my way here via Heather B. Last summer I had a pair of flip-flops die on me in a similar manner. No, not. I had had them for almost two years and had gotten them at Mervyn’s. I wanted to cry. This summer I replaced them with a $7.99 pair from Target. I have lived in them this summer. And they have held up quite well. Not like the friggin’ Steve Madden sandals. The strap on those broke on my third wearing. Grrrr!
March 5th, 2010 at 9:55 pm
you should visit glitterflops.com, the website offers flipflops 100x better than target’s. They are soft and pretty. They last. Mine are a year old and look like I just bought them. The company backs them. If by some crazy fluke a crystal comes off send them back and they will fix it. Mine have lots of crystals and I have never lost any.