See You Later, Calculator

See You Later, Calculator

his look

calculated my worth

the cost of my shoes

was the measure

of his interest

his respect would be gauged

by the tailoring of my shirt

by the cut of my jeans

by what he could see

and what he saw

clearly wasn’t up to his standards

which were clearly

the only ones that mattered

not that he was superficial

by any stretch of the imagination

he could discuss Hegel

he knew the Chinese poets

but would discuss them

with those whose status

was equal to his

my shoes just weren’t up to it

even though they were new shoes

even though my sheets

were freshly washed

they just didn’t have

the right thread count

to support my point of view

as far as he was concerned

once again

being poor pays off

In summer, one of the men I see, wears flip-flops & will take transit wearing them to my place for play. The thought going nearly barefoot on Toronto’s public transit, even walking on the sidewalks, fills me with, I want to say loathing, but with trepidation. For one thing I hate flip-flops on men, in particular, anywhere other than pool side. This digression serves a prelude to my writing of this piece.

I do judge people by their footwear. I’m not as calculating at the ‘his’ in the piece though. I’m willing to overlook footwear if the wearer is otherwise presentable. One gets used to staring at shoes in transit to avoid actually looking at people. But the wrong shoes can unbalance a nice look. I avoid snap judgments. For me nice means shoes in decent shape in accordance to the rest the attire. Construction worker with battered Kodiaks is fine – stilettos with sweats is trashy 🙂

But I have meet people like the protagonist of this piece. Some are clerks in men’s wear stores who gauge their service, or lack thereof, according to my wear. I’ve encountered participants at various workshops who do the same thing. The better tailored the shirt I wear the more respect I get. I know the power of the button.

I’ve also met men who gauge prospect sex partners by thread-count. One man I saw briefly took great pleasure in talking about the amazing penthouse condo one of his conquests lived it & the man’s satin sheets. No satin in my house, at least not for bedding. He did know the Chinese poets & was ‘impressed’ when I pulled out an anthology of them to check out his favourites. I was not impressed.