LOL!! Thank You so much for this thread. I needed the laugh after reading about crowing cocks. Ahhh…I feel much better now. chuckle
I thought I was alone in this…thanks, Pugluvr.
I was in the mall the other night with my Beloved; we were sitting, doing some people watching, when a giggle* of teenage girls came by. There were 6 of them and five were wearing those loose slip-on shoes. With all the varying speeds of pflapping going on, it sounded like a machine gun. My Beloved and I were absolutely convulsed with trying not to laugh until they were out of earshot.
*a gaggle of girls= a giggle
You were in a mall? In New Jersey? Where the heck did you find one? 
I wore the things for showers in the dorm. Other than that they bug me. Something about splitting the big toe away from the other. Ewww.
Yep, they bug me. Except for Samauri Jack’s. How does he not clomp around in those things? How does he fight in them for that matter? Speh, I guess different strokes for different folks. He seemed to hate sneakers.
Wolfian, who is on his way to the Burlington Center in the great Garden State
Ok so is it more the noise or the look of the flaps/thongs/flip flops that bothers you?
I feel so bad reading this thread because I am guilty of wearing them to work too. My workplace is far from a legal office though, the only stipulation of ‘business casual’ being no jeans. They actually have in the dresscode no rubber flip flops, but I’ve worked the loophole and purchased sandals that are not made of rubber. I call one pair my wicker sandals. But I must say that the fact that they are not rubber seriously cuts down on the noise. I also try to hold them onto my feet so I can walk by some on making no noise at all. I realize they are not the most proffesional type of footwear but you should see what some others wear around here.
i can stand the occasional pflap, a squeeky shoe, even heavy thumping, but i cannot stand people who don’t pick up there feet!!!
shuffle, squish, shuffle, squish,shuffle,squish. UGH! it drives me nuts!!
This one overweight lady (not to make fun but she’s fat for a reason…always stuffing her face with sugar and even admitted to me that she doesn’t know what mango is because she never eats fruits or vegetable…sick!)
ANYWAY
i looked down at her feet when she walked but and, sure enough, she was shuffleing along!
Our office is so quiet, too so its like the noise is amplified
:mad:
Unless you’re using a public shower or putting a boat in the water,* you should not be wearing flip-flops. They are noisy and annoying and have no place as everyday footwear for grown-ups. (Kids get to wear whatever they want, including tube tops, jewlery made out of candies, and sneakers with cartoon charcaters on them.) (Actually, if they made them in my size, I’d wear sneakers with cartoon characters on them.)
- This is not meant to be an exclusive list, just the only two activities in my adult life during which I have worn flip-flops. If you can come up with other activities that require cheap, waterproof footwear, more power to you.
I’m a child of the 80s. Transformers, Thundercats, He-Man, and velcro sneakers. Of course, once we got to be around 9 or 10 or so, peer pressure forced us to wear the grownup kind.
I always missed the velcro sneakers, though. I mean, what’s the point of going through all the effort to tie laces when velcro is so easy and works just as well? So a few weeks ago I found (with the help of the SDMB) a website that offers adult sized velcro sneakers, and I am happy again.
I wear them out back when I go to clean up the Kingdom of Bunny and feed His Royal Imperial Bunnyness. My daughter complains because they PFLAP loudly on the back steps early in the morning while she’s getting her beauty rest, so I sometimes do this barefoot, which is the cheapest waterproof footwear I own. But sometimes it’s muddy so I pflap away.
At Nordstrom, they sell very expensive rubber flip flops. With heels. In lovely summer colors.
But they look like the $2 ones my mom used to buy me to wear in the summer when I was a kid. Only with heels. And in lovely summer colors.
Anyone who shuffles their feet should be forced to walk for a week beside SpazMom circa 1985-1989. They will never ever in their entire lives shuffle their feet again.
I wear flops to work during summer. I live in the Southeast. It’s muggy, hot and humid during the summer. It’s too HOT to wear shoes. Mah feet sweat and staink if I wear shoes.
Fuck you all. I’m gonna flap away until the weather gets cooler. If that inconsequential noise bothers you so much, then you’re obviously too thin-skinned and anal to accomodate because you’ll (makes flapping motions with hand) whaa-whaa-whaa about everything.
I get the impression from this thread that it’s only women who get to wear thongs to workpaces like pug’s. Is that true?
I had a couple of women friends who used to complain about the fact that men always got to wear “comfortable” footwear, while they had to slog around in high heels. I was very sympathetic to these arguments, as i would hate to have to wear high heels, especially in a job that required any amount of walking.
These same women, however, never thought it unfair that they could get away with sandals or thongs in the summer, while their male co-workers sweated in shoes and socks.
In fact summer is a time, sartorially speaking, when it would be excellent to be a woman. Skirts allow air to move more freely, and sleeveless tops also seem to be acceptable work attire. Try getting away with that if you’re a guy who’s not in construction! (the sleeveless top; not the skirt)
I’m a grad student, so what i wear to “work” is not very important. But when it’s 95 degrees and 95% humidity here in Baltimore, and i see some sap walking around in suit and tie, with a huge patch of sweat showing through the shirt, i just wonder at some of the conventions that we thrust upon ourselves.
Velco sneakers=riding the short bus
In college (circa 1985), my roommate had velcro sneakers. He always got up at the crack of dawn to eat breakfast in the cafeteria right as it opened.
(Why, yes, he was anal, now that you mention it.)
He hatedhatedHATED for his velcro straps to be anything but parallel. I never actually saw him use a ruler to measure the distance between the straps to make sure they were equidistant, but I firmly believe he did so.
Naturally, the first time or twelve he placed his velcro straps on the fabric base, they were not properly aligned. So he would rip them apart and try again.
(Why, yes, he was extremely anal. Why do you ask?)
Do you have any idea how annoying it is to be awakened at 5:30 in the freakin’ ayem every single day by the sound of velcro being fastened and unfastened multiple times?
I think there’s a couple of issues here:
First, flip-flops. Flip-flops are an abomination unto the Lord if worn anywhere other than the shower, the beach, or the privacy of your own home. Wearing them to work – horrors!
Second, slides. I’m guessing most of the women are wearing slides, which are more fashionable/dressy, but which also make the annoying flopping noise if they’re not substantial enough to stay on your feet. Mules also can present the same problem. (Slides = sandals; mules = closed-toe shoes. Neither have anything around the heel to hold them on, so both you can just stick your feet in 'em and go.) I agree that the sound is pretty annoying.
My personal rule is that I won’t wear slides or mules unless the leather upper that comes over the foot is wide enough to hold the shoe on the foot. But truthfully that’s not because I know floppy shoes bug others because of the sound, so much as it bugs me to be wearing floppy shoes.
And I work in a law office, and I’d wear slides on a Friday only (casual day). Under no circumstances would I wear flip-flops to work, but then I personally wouldn’t be caught dead in a pair of flip-flops under any circumstances. I realize is my own small irrational prejudice, but there it is.
How is this an improvement on the typical noncasual office sound:
Klock, klock, klock, klock, klock, klock, klock, klock, klock, klock, klock, klock
- ??
Stupid $#^#@@!! high heels…
…or, more to the point, any worse than?
aww, c’mon, you knew what I meant…
Well, in my office we’ve got carpet. So if you’re wearing shoes with heels or anything else, you really don’t hear much.
But floppy shoes make noise no matter the surface. And the noise is my personal beef with them.
I agree completely, the sound drives me bonkers.
AND,
I wear flip-flops all the time, even to the office.
I’d actually been thinking about starting a thread on this, because I’ve noticed that it is possible to walk without making the noise. People in hot countries (please pardon the generalization but it has been entirely accurate in my experience, although if YMVs please let me know) wear flip-flops a lot, because they’re the best cheap disposable footwear to wear when it’s hot. The Best. And those people in Brazil or Colombia or Zimbabwe who wear them all the time throughout their lives can walk without the sound.
A Canadian friend who owns a farm in Brazil tells me that people used to steal stuff from his farm all the time because they could always hear him coming (pflap, pflap, pflap). The day he could suddenly pflap silently, he scared the daylights out of several prospective thieves.
So, upon noticing this, I decided I must learn how to do it too. And so I made an extensive study of the feet of people who can walk without pflapping, and I can do it myself pretty reliably. The trick is to relinquish the firm grip that your toes have on the shoe. This is tricky because it seems like you need that grip in order to keep the shoe on your foot. There is a way to do it, though (it involves bending your toes up when you take a step, instead of down). Practice makes perfect !
It constantly surprises me that there are any sidewalks left on campus, because around here everybody (with the sole exception of yours truly) shuffles when they walk. One would expect the concrete to be worn down to bare dirt in a matter of days. Plus, the entire female population (again, with myself being the sole exception) wears those four-inch-platform flip-flops. You know, the ones I call Clydesdale sandals because they make the chick look and walk like they should be pulling the Budweiser wagon.
I wear sandals a fair amount of the time, since this is Southern California and often quite warm. I’ve never had a job where I could wear them to work, but even if I did I don’t think I would. But I do know how to walk quietly in them. Hell, I can even walk quietly in my wooden Dr. Scholl’s sandals when I want to.