Quest for an enlightened sole
By Sheryl-Lee Kerr
It was time to buy new running shoes. If even your domesticated
animal - the same one which eats spiders and snuffles the backsides of stray
cats - feels it is now beneath her to chew your sneakers, you know the time
has come.
I am astonished at how much running shoes have changed. They are now
panthers or tubular missiles, promoted as “shaped with the nuances of the
human foot in mind”. (As opposed to before, when they were shaped with the
human nostril in mind?)
I saw one pair that looked like two puffed-up white rice bubbles.
Add the laces, three garish swirls of color and an almost $300 price tag and
there you have it.
Would I feel like a panther while wearing them? No. A dork,
certainly - $300 to look like a dork. Hey, I can do that for nothing.
Sales assistants also seem different. They still speak in the royal
we (eg “Let's see what we think of this one”), as though an army of avid
salesfolk hiding in the back room has appointed your guy as their Grand High
Poobah Spokesman, representing their views in all matters.
But they also seem to know a new language - sneaker speak - which
they obviously master in a course I presume is called the Applied Upper
Hyperdynamics of the Panther Feet.
My sales assistant, in his best sneaker speak, launched into an
incredible speech, most of which I have forgotten. But fear not, I have
seamlessly filled in the blanks for the purposes of this re-creation:
“Let's see what we're looking at here. Ah yes. Well, these models
are based on technology developed by NASA. They boast uppers in
polyfluoro-doofusmaterial which has internal glockenspiels, designed to
comfort the toes and cradle the foot, carrying it to a new plane of
existence. You will become that panther on the sporting field. Oh, and see
here, underneath? There's a little smiley face.”
Once he determined I was no runner, and hence not in requirement of
either polyfluoro-doofusmaterial or smiley faces (disappointed though I am
not to be paying an extra $100 for the privilege), he moved along.
“Well, we also have these ... which will cushion the heel against
high-impact stresses of your, er, arduous walk to the car each and every
morning. They offer inbuilt gel-pad plus a foam, triangulated puffenstuff
inserted into the aerated polywannacracker insulation.”
I confess I may not have quite got the technical terms as spot-on as
I might, but I distinctly remember that the shoes he succeeded in selling me
did the job impressively.
My only question now is: how many glockenspiels had to die to make
these?
Meanwhile, if anyone buys the panther shoes and gets to that other
plane of existence, drop me a line.
© Sheryl-Lee Kerr & The Advertiser, 31 OCT 2000