This post is written for a long-time follower of this blog who wrote to me recently to ask about my perspective of being a man who wears boots exclusively, even during the summer when it is quite warm, and being surrounded by flip-flop wearing yuppies who know no better…

Well, let’s say, “surrounded by flip-flop wearing yuppies who wear those things.” Okay, here goes…

…to each his own.

I really mean that. While I personally wouldn’t be caught dead wearing those ugly, unhealthy things, those are my personal feelings. I believe that as long as others do not break laws (and regretfully there are no laws against those things), people can wear what they want.

Does it make sense to wear flip-flops while operating a motorcycle? No — only the contenders for the next Darwin award do that. Just as dumb: wearing shorts and sneakers on a bike as well. Really stupid.

Does it make sense to wear flip-flops to a home improvement warehouse/retailer (like Big Blue, Big Orange, etc.)? No — on Friday evening, my favorite time to visit Big Orange to avoid weekend crowds, I observed a guy who was wearing flip-flops drop something off a shelf onto his foot and cause an injury so significant that medics had to be called.

Does it make sense to wear flip-flops while operating an automobile? No — there are a number of stories that I hear from cops who have said that they have attended ample auto crashes where flip-flops were to blame for missing the brake pedal, accelerating too quickly when the foot slipped out of the flip-flop, and so forth. No, it does not make sense to wear those dorky things while driving any type of vehicle. Even a bicycle!

Besides flip-flops being cited as the cause of numerous foot infections, when people wear them, it makes others have to look at their feet. Most people have really ugly feet. Doesn’t matter if women paint their toenails. I never had a foot fetish and never will. I would prefer that people keep their feet covered, thanks. (The only feet I like are those of little babies, but infants don’t wear flip-flops anyway.)

People have asked me, “what do you wear between the locker and the shower at the gym?” … well, that assumes that I use gyms. I do not.

People have asked me, “what do you wear at the beach?” Okay, I admit… the rare times I visit a sandy beach, I can understand why people wear something that protects the bottom of their feet from hot sand or walking across pavement between a hotel and a beach. What do I wear in that situation? Low-cut hikers that don’t require tying. That’s the closest that I get to sneakers which might be an alternative to flip-flops if I had to have such an alternate. I pull them off when I enter the ocean to swim.

People have also asked, “what do you wear at the pool?” Hmmmm… a pool. What’s that?

Nahhh… I know what a pool is. I swim in one during the winter for exercise. I just pad around in bare feet between the lockers and the pool deck.

People frequently ask me, especially on hot and humid summer days, “don’t your feet get hot in ‘those’ boots?” Well, no, sweetie. If my feet got hot in ‘those’ boots, I would wear ‘these’ boots. (That is my frequent reply, by the way.) I deliberately choose boots to wear in hot environments that breathe well, are lower than average, and fit comfortably. Tight boots, tall boots, and boots that do not breathe are not choices to wear in warm weather. But that applies to anyone.

To summarize — people can wear what they want. No one tells me that I cannot or should not wear boots, so in return, I do not tell anyone that they cannot or should not wear flip-flops. I think that flip-flops are dangerous, unhealthy, ugly, and contribute to unsightly visual disasters, but once again…

Life is short: to each his own.