My friends on the third floor are passionate about shoes. They have Ferragamo, Nine West, Naturalizer, Charles and Keith. Their bags are Prada, Coach, Fendi, and Louis Vuitton. Ada has eighteen pairs of shoes under her workstation, and none of them costs below 5,000 pesos.
I adore shoes, although my taste is not as expensive as theirs. I raid end-of-the-month sales for those good finds that do not wreck my budget. And since I often have to weigh the need between a new pair of high heels and a can of infant formula, I treasure my shoes.
Every night I walk from the office to where the shuttle is parked. I cross a mall and an overpass. And every night, there are little kids there, begging for money. They are very dirty and they usually block your way when you try to walk past them. Sometimes, when they're in a bad mood, they even kick you when you don't hand them money. They are barefoot.
I try to ignore them, citing excuses such as the anti-mendicancy law, or that they use the money to buy drugs anyway, or that I don't have small change. But I never fail to notice their dirty feet. And I think that these kids have never heard of the difference between Michael Kors and Naturalizer. They're probably more worried about the whipping they'll get when they go home without money. And every time I see them I remember my friends' shoes.
I have nothing against expensive shoes. I have one pair of Nine West wedges, a pretty blue-green, with ribbons that you tie up. I like it very much. I only wear it in the office, because it's too expensive to use when I go traipsing all over the mall or when I commute home.
Call me a hypocrite, but somehow I feel I cannot cross the overpass wearing a pair of shoes with a price tag that could feed the barefoot child a hundred lunches. :-)
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