Time To Get Un-Serious
I write about heavy shit too much. I need to lighten my mind portfolio. It’s time to discuss the most important shoes on the market. The Magic Slipper.
It was the winter of 2016, I began packing my life away into one giant suitcase. Moving to Nepal, alone, as a teenager. You tend to not think about the most important clothing item that will make or break your time in the hills, mountains and flatlands: your shoes.
I had a crappy pair of flip flops and some Nikes. Both of them, immediately, shriveled up and died. I was in the market for something unbreakable. Little would I know I’d find the most incredible footwear to grace my toesies. (It’s not a word, but I’m not an English major. I’m allowed to write this way.) I introduce to you….The Magic Slipper.
When the movie Idiocracy came out, everyone apparently ranted and raved about Crocs. They were touted as The Ugliest Shoes To Grace God’s Green Earth. Now we see them worn by homely gardeners and fashionistas alike. The common link is comfort. Abandoning imagery for comfort. However, then, Crocs became an incredibly popular form of footwear. So that was a big fat lie.
The first time I saw a magic slipper was on a drunk man asleep in the middle of the road. We tried to wake him up so that the leopards wouldn’t eat him, or the bikes wouldn’t hit him, so that the rain and hail wouldn’t beat him, or so his family could know where he was. He politely told us to eat shit and went back to sleep on the pavement. In the same way that ads attempt (not succeed for me. I decided by age 4 I would never let an ad manipulate me. I was born to be angry at the television.) to distort our perception of products, so do situations. Seeing that man live fuckless, hopeless, totally careless in those slippers made them all the more mysterious to my untrained eye. The situations just kept rolling. I slowly realized that every single man in the village we inhabited, and the villages nearby had a common link tied to their toes: the effervescent Magic Slipper. It was a working class hero status symbol. It was an indestructible force. I would go on to watch men carry 200 pound Teak doors up mountains into monasteries in these slippers. I would go on to be a brave human one day in the spring of 2017 and purchase them myself.
(My first pair ever.)
My first pair of magic slippers were a dream come true. The smell of fresh ocean blue plastic. The timeless squish of my feet between their earthy crunch. One of my students swore his father’s magic slippers saved his life as he slid drunkly down the hill. I could feel the power of these slippers on my feet. I felt like a real local in these bad boys. Alex and I both began wearing our Magic Slippers all over the world and they were certainly not a sight for sore eyes, but managed to turn many heads. One day, while perusing around Yellowstone, a father, most likely in his mid fifties, caught a glimpse of Alex’s footwear and his whole face dropped. Looking sweaty and nervous, he approached Alex with caution. “Hey, man, I have a question. Where did you get those shoes?”
Alex began chuckling and told him they were only available in Nepal. The irony was ridiculous. This man thought he was wearing a precious sought out slipper in the midst of the Himalayas, however, we were able to find this plastic shoe in every province for under two dollars. The man approached Alex even closer, admiring every ugly detail with care. “I know this is crazy, but would you be down to trade?” The man began to take his grey Nikes off. “Dad! Stop it!” His son began to blush with shame. Alex and I couldn’t stop laughing. The magic slipper fever had finally caught on in the United States. Alex couldn’t bring himself to give his shoes to the man for a less than fair trade, but we still giggle about the absolute power of these shoes to this day.
The last time I was in Nepal, a few months before I left, I managed to find a lovely black pair of magic slippers, a kind I had never found before. I still wear them now when the weather is nice. The best part about these shoes is that they truly last forever. It’s been almost two years since I have been back. My heart aches in lots of ways for this, but sometimes I just look down at my feet and feel these shoes from 8,000 miles away that somehow connect me to my friends, community and loved ones there. I feel proud to have the ugliest footwear in the game, considering they are so rare and beloved. And who knows, maybe one day we will all wear Magic Slippers just like Crocs, and we will think back on a strange time when they were once considered unfathomably repulsive to look at.
(Picture of me enjoying simpler times in my magic slippers, 2023. Udaipur, Nepal)