shopping

In my last few months in Japan, I plan to start carrying my camera around to mundane places and taking photos more frequently of what seems to pass for "normal" here. Last night we went to pick Jon (our faithful Island Friend) up at Main Place. Keen to do a bit of window-shopping, we quickly ran into a rack of beautiful hats (see above).

Then the boys wanted to go into the Nike shoe store. I wasn't too excited... until I saw what Nike is marketing in Japan. Do you think the CEOs of Nike have any idea what kind of funky goes on in their overseas products? Possibly such shoes have come into style in America during my absence, but I'm doubting it.

Speaking of shoes, on top of every Okinawan's list of people to kill is the manufacturer of a certain brand of children's shoe. Which of you JETs can guess what I'm talking about?

AAAARGH! The squeaky shoes!

Some dumb ass here came up with this bad idea: wouldn't it be cute if we made shoes for tots that produced incredibly loud, high-pitched, wheezing squeaky notes every time the little one took a toddle? Mom could never lose the child, even if it escaped out of sight! A revolution in parental supervision of 2 year olds who have just found their land-legs but have yet to find any sense!

That idea is all well and good until you put it into practice. Then you've just got hoards of maniacal, drooling little people toddling around Japan in a coordinated effort to produce the symphony of tone-deaf DEATH. Am I trying to read a book? Drink my coffee? Talk to my friends? Wait for them to call my name at the doctor's office? Yes. Yes I am. And this sound is ever-present as I do: SQUEAK! A-SQUEAK! SQUEEEEEEAK-EAK-EA-EAK! It's infuriating. And this time it's not just the gaijin getting bent out of shape. Everyone in a 100-foot radius is surely directing evil-thoughts at the wool-brained parents who thought such a shoe would be CUTE. But nobody ever takes the initiative to scream, "enough!" de-shoe a strange tot, and take off running. Why? It's clear that the parents are already enduring karmic suffering 1,000 times greater than a pair of stolen squeak-shoes could cause. THEY actually have to be with their child's shoes 24/7. Heh.