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.
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