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My shoe preference is Converse Hightops. I've been wearing them for my entire adult life (well over 10 years), and they're the closest I come to being a "girly girl" in the sense of matching shoes to wardrobe. Prior to the Cons, my shoe choice was Reebok Hightops, which I finally left upon realizing that my feet are so little that the bulky Reeboks just made them look silly.

The interesting thing about Cons is that wearing them seems to imply some kind of membership to something. I've never been clear on what. In any given crowd, Cons wearers will single each other out. Absolute strangers walk up to me in the oddest places just to comment on my shoes and/or to show me that they, too, have on Cons. Wednesday it happened at the expensive salon my mom dragged me to in yet another attempt to get me a hairstyle she's happy with. I get more compliments on my shoes than on anything else I wear. "Nice Cons" seems to be a phrase like a secret handshake. Even the Japanese students went wild the first time they noticed my shoes. They gave my Cons more attention than the knife I pulled out of my pocket to open a bag a candy, and that elicited an hour long discussion on Americans and weapons.

However, Cons aren't anything special as far as shoes go. They're not rare or expensive. Just three days ago, I saw them on sale in the mall. For the last several years I've bought my shoes from major shoe retailers, usually at a mall or regular shoe store. Prior to that, I bought them from the Spiegle catalog. The store I usually buy them at sells the shoes for $25 a pair. This is one of the reasons I like them; I'm cheap when it comes to my attire.

Cons don't seem to belong to any particular subculture, either. I've known a lot of people who prefer them for various reasons. My sixty-five year old step-father has been wearing them for forty years for pretty much the same reasons I wear them: they're cheap and easy to clean (just toss them in the washing machine). My Cons wearing friends like them because of the colors, as do I. I adore my red shoes, but I'm not always in the mood for red, so it's nice to have the grey, black, blue, and stars and stripes around for when my mood changes. I've known at least one person in every high school clique who wore Cons. A great number of people I knew in college wore them. And they're even evident at the University where I work amongst the faculty. So it's not even like they're exclusive to a certain age group or social class.

So, yesterday I'm walking down the street in Dubuque and two teenage girls walk past me. They see my shoes and one of the girls says, "Cool shoes, poseur." It would have been nice if I'd had some witty comeback for that, or even an FU (tho I'm not one for swearing), but -- honestly -- I was just stunned at being called a poseur. Not hurt, just stunned. All I could think was, what exactly did they think I was posing as. The Reeboks were a poseur thing. Back in high school, all I wanted to be was a metal head and that style of shoe was part of the uniform. The Cons happened after I grew out of that. There's nothing posturish about them at all. So, here again, the Secret Society of Cons has been invoked. And, again I have to ask, what's the deal? They're just shoes. Go the mall, drop the $40, and you too can start pointing out your feet to strangers.