Life is short, buy the Shoes

Labor day (Labour for us General Indian English folks) is a long awaited holiday in US. It is official start of Autumn. Compared to India, in US the official holidays are very few and insecure Americans keep working through these holidays anyway!
The last holiday was the independence day on 4th July. Of course in capitalist world holidays translate in more retail sales and high turnover. Even the mall barber shops are open during holidays. Both holidays, 4th July and 4th September translate in more sales as these are immediately after the payday for most of the average Americans (yes in contrast to what many people in the world believe, average Americans make approx. $45K per annum and have limited disposable income). So I joined the bandwagon of many million Americans in holiday spending spree. It is important for my business that American economy is stable and growing, so I contribute wherever and whenever I can. I buy the stuff, I may not need, would never use, but hey, this is business not personal (The Godfather - it is a bible of life and has answer for everything, "What to pack for travel?", "..leave the gun take the cannoli.").

Well anyway, I had to do my bit so I tried multiple things. It is very difficult for me to go buy something at a whim (called incidental shopping in US). Especially with all that middle class background in Indian family. This is true for the things I need, now imagine trying to do incidental shopping for the things that I don't need!

At first I tried with some gift articles I wanted to buy for my relatives back home, this proved to be quite time-consuming exercise and I was not convinced that the salesperson knew any better. I decided to do some internet research before buying. Then I tried something for my own use (or not)... I could never submit myself to buying clothes in US, since majority of them are made in India, Srilanka, Malaysia or Pakistan and I could buy them much cheaper back home. To my mind this is last step before Americanization, so never do it.
Finally I zeroed on shoes. The story goes like this, in past few months, my weight went up exponentially, so I had to do lot of exercise, one of the things I do is a long run in the morning on Green belt behind my apartment. As it turns out, I have never done the hard court running in the past. This resulted in shin splints (very painful at that!). The 'wise' people advised me to buy better shoes than my $15 Walmart all purpose athletic shoes. As if I needed another reason to spend money. I went through internet running sites, branded goods sites and Men's Health magazine (yes the same one!). Nike had new 'human engineering' shoes, which were supposed to be much better cushioned for runners. Well, that was enough convincing for me to buy the $85 shoes. Sports Authority was very close and the commitment to run 2-3 times a week seemed very much achievable. So after 5 mins long research and a resolve to run everyday, I was ready to spend the $85 plus tax (gotta pay Uncle Sam!). Now the most needed thing was bought, I was thirsty for more.
Typically when I travel I carry one formal shoes pair and one casual. But now I realize how uncivilized I was. What I really needed was one casual, one athletic, one for running and one formal. Ignorance is never bliss. Now I know why I was feeling so out of place in United States. I just did not had enough shoes! I wanted to fix the problem so I went to another shoes shop in the mall, now the kindly people at the store were offering me half price on second pair. It would have been very rude of me to just reject their offer. We checked various shoes and finally managed to leave with only one red cordovan shoe pair. It took me long time to select the red shoes, but you know, there is never such a thing called perfect shoe. So you have to buy more than one imperfect pairs, at least you would get closer! Thus, after $200 on shoes and a Joni Mitchell CD (Both Sides now - Love is life's illusion - I heard it first time in Love Actually, nice songs), I was out of the mall. Happy that I contributed something to the $9 trillion economy of US. 25% of that comes from Retail. If I am ever to be known to the posterity, I would be known as one good shopper in US who spent lots of money on shoes. After all life is short, everybody needs to buy more shoes, whether in US or otherwise.