Snoop Dogg advertising Skechers is adding his name to a line-up of slip- ons, the Rhine-stoned, but unlike the shoes in my Sketchers outlet that I’ve been going to for many years located to the east of auto row on Marina Parkway in San Leandro, these are expensive, upwards of $100, which costs close to nothing for shoes these days, but a whole lot for Skechers. My daughter used to refer to as “old lady’s shoes.” The company wooed my demographic with promises of air-cooled memory foam, wonderful if you are someone like myself who always needed to wear a wide-width and has forever shied away from spindly heels and what the girls on Sex in the City used to wear. For me, shoes have always needed to be practical, partly having to do with my father who made arch supports, always admonishing us that feet were one of the most important parts of the body, (treat them right and they will treat you right), and also my sore loser reaction to the fact that until more recently, most stores did not carry wide-width shoes. Until I found Skechers.
Skechers used to cost a whole lot less until I began seeing them advertised everywhere on television and in fashionable international malls. They have gone from a offside brand to high-end fashion advertised by pickle ball athletes and notably, by Snoop Dogg, who always advocates for the underdog, a tall skinny guy with a long braid and dark glasses, a good friend of Martha Stewart’s with an IQ of 147 who is taking things more easily now that he’s reached the fifth floor. We all know how hard it is to climb to that fifth-floor apartment, especially when the elevator has been out for the last three months and the landlord lives in Florida. You need a good pair of shoes to get there.