Slide Game
I walked down the stairs the other day, looked around and saw four pairs of slides by the door. Five if you count my wife’s Birkenstocks and six if you count her mules. But that’s OK for a lot of reasons, but especially when you consider that there are (at least) four different categories of slides:
•Standard slides (cool varietal) - this is like your sporty kind of slide that you would throw on with a pair of sweatpants to go grab takeout or maybe even to the store on a low key grocery run
•Standard slides (rugged varietal) - this slide has a beefier sole that’s perfect for taking your dog to a dog park that has that really tough bark-like mulch, the Platonic ideal for which is a Birkenstock Arizona
•Pool slides - mostly rubber slides that you can wear around a pool/spa and not have them get destroyed via water overload
•House slides - this is a strictly indoors/outdoor living space category of slides that serve as a way to keep a little barrier on your foot while also making it so that you don’t drag your foot mess all over your house, maybe like a adilette or Benassi.
Growing up in the Midwest, it was commonplace to keep your shoes on indoors. A few years in Toronto was enough to change my mind on that. And once you reach that “no shoes in the house” mindframe, you’re going to need slides. (Slides are technically shoes but only in the way that a square is also technically a rectangle.)
Now it’s life shoes off when I hit the door, then maybe a house slide when I’m cruising around the house, depending on general foot health. Then, whenever I need to take the dog or garbage out, it’s rugged standards. If it’s c-ball season, pool slides are in order. And if I need to make moves in the city, and the weather permits, lemme holler at those cool standards.
I do feel a bit like Monica having all these categories of slides. Don’t even get me started on sweatshirt taxonomy.