What’s “The Basement”?
Filene’s Basement. The original, in downtown Boston. Amazing deals. I’m still in mourning.
I got a pair of Coach men’s dress shoes for $75 at the Filene’s in Chicago. Most comfortable dress shoes I’ve ever owned.
Through judicious use of accumulated coupons, giftcards, and an employee discount, I got a $395 pair of Frye boots for about $250 or thereabouts. This is pretty much the defining moment of my life in shoes. They are still in gorgeous shape and they’re the only pair of shoes I have that I get compliments every time I wear them.
But I could always use another pair.
apollonia, I am internet high-fiving you right now. 
Please forgive Guin. She’s just one of the many unworthies who don’t understand you, having not been a member of the Peace Corps and all.
You’re late to the party again, Randall.
No way, man. The party’s still on, we just weren’t telling you about it.
And the thing is that I agree with her basic point–different people value different things, and who gives a shit. But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get on even sven’s ass for always walking around crowing about the star on her belly.
You know, it’s probably been more than a year since the offending thread, where I mentioned that for about six months after four years straight living in remote parts of developing countries, it was occasionally awkward to find common ground with people who spent their late 20s in a more conventional way. If you recall, I was asking how to talk about the recent past without over-emphasizing my work abroad.
I’ve been back for a year and a half. My qipaos and pange have found a place in the back of my closet, and Pitbull has crowded out Petit Pays on my iPod. When I share pictures, I show people pictures of my trip to Zimbabwe last summer. I still hang out with my Peace Corps crew- and we are really, really close friends- but I’ve also got a whole new group of school friends and an active life in this new place I call home. This is kind of a secret, but there are murmurs of white picket fences and a house full of babies becoming a part of my life in the nearish future.
I’m not sure why you are stuck on this. At this point, it is you who is bringing up Cameroon. I know it’s a shiny little lure for you, but really, don’t you have anything better to do with your time than bug people about stuff that happened three and a half years ago?
I’m not normally one to call people small-minded. I really believe it takes all types. But you must be a very, very small person if someone who had a slightly different life for part of their 20s is so intimidating that you can’t let go of it for years on end.
Sven, I think you are mistaking boredom for envy or awe. Your 20s really weren’t that different from those of many people, I’m afraid: I have lived in four different countries and three continents and am contemplating a move to another; in my 20s and 30s I spent 7 years in Japan and travelled around a lot of Europe and South East Asia. It gave me a lot of wonderful experiences {and some bloody awful ones}, but I’m not callow enough to think that it puts me on a higher plane than other mortals, or that anyone wants to hear about “well, when I was in a Karen village in the hill country north of Chiang Mai” or hear about the knick-knacks on my bookshelf. Sorry, Sven, your travels really don’t make you all that special or grant you any unique insight into the human condition, and that is at the core of most people’s problem with you.
UM . . . NO. You were asking us how to live among mere mortals again now that you had become a far superior being.
What’s funny is that your whole attitude is at odds with what you expressed in your first post in this thread. Just like some people value sneakers and some don’t, some value travel and living abroad and some don’t. Having lived abroad doesn’t make you a superior person, just like having Air Jordans doesn’t either.
I’m not stuck on anything, I just saw an opportunity to remind you of how you walk around thinking your better than everyone else. Maybe I’ll give up on you at some point, but so far I continue to believe you may someday learn that having been in the Peace Corps does not make you better than those who haven’t.
This. I never thought you were playing the “I’m better than all of you” card. But even asking the question “I’ve traveled so much that I just can’t talk to regular people anymore, how do I do it?” smacks of pretentiousness. It made you sound like an asshole and it’ll probably take a while for you to live it down. Sorry.
Word.
I’ve been going to third world countries since before she was born, but that’s because my folks are actually from one. When I go, I don’t go as an Official White Person peering into the world of dark people. I was just visiting my grandpa. I dunno, maybe I’d think it was special if I were a white girl from a beach town. I actually like sven usually and agree with her more often than not, but her shtick as the Representative of Dark People gets really old and annoying real fast. Her points in this thread might be well intentioned, but are very misplaced. I actually happen to be a black person, and trust me, I am about 1,000x more attuned to code talk that means “I hate niggers” than she is, and this isn’t it. They really are just sneakers, and this isn’t some not-so-subtle jab at black people. I know you learned in your Sociology class, sven, that we value athletic footwear the way your people do Volvos, but that isn’t actually true, and nobody but a dumb shit thinks shoes of any kind are worth starting a fight over. The same is true of iPads (you know, white people stuff), etc.
MOL, you rock. I know you’re tired of hearing it, but I just wanted to add another hallelujah to your chorus.
I love flattery! It’s my only weakness.
That and rum.
Don’t know about actual muggings but it’s not at all uncommon in Chicago for punks to grab an iPhone out of someone’s hand on the L just before the doors open for a stop and then run away. It’s just as much robbery – theft of property by force or threat of force – as an outright mugging and it’s common enough that it has a nickname: Apple picking. News story.