Wearing Five Finger Shoes into a Club
One night I decided to try to wear my Vibram Five Finger Shoes into a club. I mean they are technically shoes, but I thought the bouncer might view them as socks or even barefeet. As I showed the bouncer my ID, he didn’t even glance down and see my awesome five finger shoes.
Oh well, into the club I go. And really, I didn’t expect people to see them in a dark club at all. I just wanted to wear them around. A few hours go by and nobody is feelin my shoes but now I gotta pee. And this is when these shoes sort of felt really weird.
I am sure that none of you would walk into a restaurant or bar bathroom barefoot. I mean the floor is wet and filled with undesirables. But I knew that my shoes were fine. My barefeet would not be touching any of that crap. However, you can’t erase 30 years of filthy bathrooms in a second.
This is what happened. With these shoes, you “feel” like you are walking barefoot. As you step into the bathroom, you can feel the uneven tiles under your feet, you can see the floor is nasty, you know your feet aren’t touching the floor but you also know that there is a super thin layer of rubber between your feet and the floor. There is no thick padding, followed by an air cushion and then a thick rubber sole. You might as well walk into the bathroom with a plastic bag on your feet. So I had to calm down and just do my business and leave. As I left the bathroom I really felt like I needed to wash the bottom of the shoes.
You see, the shoes make you feel barefoot, hence you treat the bottoms like they are your soles. It’s hard to step into mud with them, because it’s like putting your foot into the mud. You can feel the mud squeeze up between your toes.
