Don't Do It

You don't need french sepia doll clogs.

The internet keeps telling me that I need these French Recycled Hemp Garden Clogs in Sepia. It tells me this at least four to five times a week, by one to seven women, all of whom look eerily similar.

But here’s the thing: the internet has never had a blister from a plastic shoe on a hot summer’s day. It’s never felt the searing burn in your upper heel while you’re trying to take a long walk and smell the lilacs but you can’t because your foot is sweating and rubbing so vigorously against the recycled hemp, which is just a term to make you feel like a good person while wearing plastic-feeling shoes, that a bloody indent has formed and you wonder what idiot bought you these shoes and then you realize you willingly bought them because the internet told you to.

Plain and simple, I can’t be trusted to go online anymore. I feel like I must be vigilant against all the recommendations coming my way, lest I, too, succumb to the rubber garden clogs and live to regret it. I also don’t have a Dutch doll or French mom aesthetic — I could never pull them off. I am the woman who wears some version of the same outfit every day, with sneakers, because I have a bunion. I’m that age now.

Let’s be clear about what these really are: shoes that make it look like you’re from the 1800s and at least one of your family members has passed from tuberculosis, or that you have just come across the Atlantic on a steamship where you rode in steerage from Minsk and arrived at Ellis Island to be poked and prodded and sent on your way into a foreign land, or that you spend your days with Ina Garten trimming hydrangeas when you know you don’t. Simply put, you don’t need them. You meaning me, I am talking to myself here, and you, dear reader.

That’s all I have to share. In addition to not purchasing these shoes this week, I am also constantly telling my children to “PUT YOUR TOYS AWAY” and “WE’RE TRYING TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE WE DON’T LIVE HERE” as we show our house this week and try to sell it. I wish I could turn them into little statues — if you have any tips for doing so, let me know.