hell hath frozen over

I've gone and done the unspeakable, the unimaginable, the DESPICABLE (but not the unbloggable)...

I've bought my son a pair of Crocs.

Here's the thing. I've had this burden, this albatross, this unbearable pressure weighing on me for some time, and in the interest of not wanting to alienate loyal friends and readers who may be hurt by what I have to say, I have never publicly expressed my point of view on this subject. But I can't hold it in any longer, and if I do, I fear I shall be consumed by it...

I hate Crocs. I think Crocs are the ugliest, dorkiest, most hideous abomination of a "shoe" that has ever (dis)graced the open market, and that's coming from a girl who owns a pair of Uggs (fake ones, at that). I am appalled that these things have become a trend that everyone seems to have blindly embraced, and I say "blindly" because that is the only way someone in their right mind would embrace them. I am praying for the day that they disappear into oblivion, to make themselves at home between tight-rolled jeans and fanny packs.

Now before you go calling me a hypocrite, seeing as how I too have bought into this ridiculous fad, allow me to defend myself and make one important distinction: Alex will only being wearing these shoes for their intended purpose. And that purpose is to clomp around in our muddy backyard, where he can take them off before entering the house, I can hose the mud off, and then leave them on the back porch, where they will remain until the next time we decide to clomp around in the backyard. A backyard which, by the way, is surrounded by a six foot privacy fence, where the only ones that will see Alex in his hideous shoes will be me, his dad, and God, all of whom love him unconditionally, even when he is wearing hideous shoes. THAT'S HOW DEEP OUR LOVE GOES.

I mean, I get it. They are comfortable. They are practical. Like orthopedic shoes. But in some cruel twist of fate, they went from being functional to being fashionable, and it's that leap that disturbs me to my very core. It's one thing if your gardening Granny spends all afternoon in her floppy hat and Crocs, removing weevils from her tomato plants, and while I cringe when I see children running around the park in those unbecoming clod-hoppers, I can control the urge to vomit because that is a marginally acceptable circumstance in which one might wear Crocs. But to the grocery store or the mall or, for the love, to CHURCH on EASTER DAY!!?? If that ain't a sin, I don't know what is.

And now, adults have boarded this bandwagon, and I am totally at a loss. Really. I don't know what to say. Except that, if you are an adult who wears Crocs, I love you, but I think your shoes are ugly. And if your kid wears Crocs, I love your kid, but I think your kid's shoes are ugly.

However...when all of Alex's canvas shoes were lined up on the back porch, caked in mud from our muddy, mud-filled backyard, and I just couldn't keep up with washing them anymore, I started to consider crossing to the dark side and getting him a pair of shoes that would make life a little easier, if not a whole lot uglier. I didn't think I would be capable of doing the deed myself, so I enlisted the help of Alex's Auntie Leah, who is unabashedly Pro-Croc and has been trying to convince me since his conception that Alex needed a pair. So there are currently two pairs of Crocs en route from Eldo. But after yet another morning of shoving Alex's feet into squishy, wet, mud-filled shoes so he could run around in the backyard, I was desperate and decided to make a run to Target and get him a pair of "fake Crocs" to hold him over until Auntie Leah's get here.

And, if you are wondering, I was literally nauseous on the way to the register knowing that people would see me buying those shoes. Then again, those people probably think Crocs are cool because apparently everyone but me thinks Crocs are cool. But I'd so rather be uncool than to be cool for buying Crocs.

That said, my son is now the owner of a pair of fake "camouflage" Crocs. And if anyone could pull off Crocs and make something so dorky look like a fashion statement, it would be Alex. But that challenge proved too much, even for him, as evidenced below.

And here's what Alex thought of them.

I would never have admitted this lapse of judgment to anyone, let alone publish photographic evidence of it on the world wide web, but chances are that I would eventually want to take pictures of Alex playing in the backyard, and I'd prefer if I didn't have to crop his feet out of every shot.

So anyway, that's it. PHEW, I feel so much better after getting that off my chest. And if I've offended any Croc-lovers with my brashness, I'm sorry...that you like ugly shoes. Love ya, mean it!!