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NGONGE

Choose Shoes!

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NGONGE   

Lately, I have been thinking about shoes a lot. Imagine if shoes were like humans. Imagine a shoe being ambitious and wanting to match or even surpass its peers. New shoes never know where they're going next but old shoes are usually set in their ways and just follow the same old path.

 

Do shoes regard their owners as gods? If you step on a puddle and get your shoe all dirty would it blaspheme or would it mumble ours is not to reason why?

 

 

The shoes that the first man on the Moon was wearing were made for that purpose and therefore I couldn't regard them as ambitious shoes. Army boots are also made for battle and cannot be considered brave just because their owner is brave.

 

I am talking about brand new shoes that one minute will be in some shop and the next they'll be bought by some random stranger who happens to have a job interview. He wears them, feels taller, fitter and more confident. He does well in his interview and gets the job. That's the type of shoe I want to have. That's the type of shoe that'll take you places.

 

I want a confident shoe. I want a shoe that takes some of the weight off. I want a shoe that makes my steps lighter, my foot surer and my path sunnier. I want a shoe with a great future. Failing that, I want a shoe with an amazing past. I don't want a boring shoe that never looks up and reaches for the stars. I want a shoe that takes off. I want a shoe with wings. I want the shoe that was thrown at Bush.

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lol@Haneefah.

 

Ka daa xaaji NG saa ha orane!

 

December 17, 2008

Op-Ed Contributor

The Shoe Heard Round the World

By JOHN KENNEY

 

Hitting someone with a shoe is considered the supreme insult in Iraq. It means that the target is even lower than the shoe, which is always on the ground and dirty.

 

— The Times, Dec. 15

 

 

IN France, of course, it’s a waffle. Throw a waffle at someone and you have said, in essence: “I loathe you. You are scum. Your people are donkey traders.” It suggests that the target is even lower than a waffle, which is sometimes on the ground if it happens to fall off a plate, and the ground could be dirty, depending upon the ground.

 

Who’s to say why, exactly? Some say the waffle’s association with Belgium is enough to disgust any Frenchman. Others suggest it is its annoyingly spongy consistency. Still others say it’s the derivation of the word — “le waffle” in French, from the Flemish “wafflintis” and originally the Latin “wafflibus,” all of which translate, loosely, to “waffle.”

 

For scholars of insults, what comes to mind almost immediately after a high-profile insulting incident is the central African nation of Chad, where hitting someone with a pair of pants is the highest form of insult. It means that the target is lower than pants, the hem of which, while not on the ground, is often near the ground and, again, unclean. The only problem with this form of insult is that the thrower then has to retrieve the pants, as he or she had been wearing them.

 

For many years people threw shorts, but almost no one was offended, as the hem of shorts is a great distance from the ground. “We’re working on new forms of insult, as well as changing our country’s name, which, strangely, is a common first name in California,” said a Chadian cultural attaché. “We need to be taken more seriously.”

 

In the former Soviet Union it is not uncommon, especially among the savage Russian mafia, to throw a 68-ton American-made Abrams M1A1 tank. It means that the target is even lower than a tank, whose treads are always on the ground, unless they’re not for some reason — say, repairs or what-have-you. In fairness, though, the throwing of tanks appears to be happening with less frequency, due to the near impossibility of surprise, especially at indoor events.

 

In Peru, meanwhile, people throw their voices as a form of insult. While not technically near the ground, a voice suggests “sound” and “sound” rhymes with “ground,” the ground being low and possibly unclean, depending upon where, exactly, you’re standing.

 

Peruvians say that throwing your voice is the ultimate insult because the intended victim doesn’t know where it came from. It is not uncommon to hear someone say, “Who said that?!” on the streets of Lima after a particularly cutting remark. The danger, of course, is insulting someone by trying to throw your voice, but doing it poorly and instead moving your lips. The intended victim knows immediately where it came from.

 

And what of tiny Bhutan, snug between Tibet in the north and India to the south? In this mysterious Buddhist country, perhaps the only one in the world that measures its Gross National Happiness, people throw brightly colored tissue paper, so as not to hurt anyone. The paper falls harmlessly to the ground — a symbol of both lowness and dirt — and the thrower quickly picks it up, disposes of it, and then apologizes profusely.

 

Source: New York Times!

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NGONGE   

Heh. Haneefah, that was as random as a flying shoe. As for a midlife crisis, I always hoped that when it comes it will be in the form of a sweet 18 year old minyaro. :D

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