There is a perversion so foul afoot in this great land that I can barely bring myself to write about it.

What’s that? What the hell are you people talking about? Oh, the headline. What’s wrong with you? I’m referring, of course, to the unholy combination shown in that picture.

All thinking people agree. Socks and sandals are a crime against god and man and nature. We need legislation, and we need it now.

Let’s back up a bit. Never mind socks and sandals; I’m tired of your feet. Male, female, you name it; stop showing me your feet. They’re ugly.

Actually, there are people with good looking feet. They are few and far between, and it doesn’t matter much, because good looking feet are fairly ugly anyway. And bad looking feet are hideous. Wear shoes.

And don’t cheat, and have your feet peeking out of your shoes at me. I don’t want to play hide and go seek with your ingrown toenails, thanks. Wear the whole shoe. Thanks again.

You’ve all indulged yourself with this idea that having a proper enclosure for your foot is unhealthy, or uncool, or your feet are too hot, or you’re athletic/earthy, or feminine, or a sorta gladiator, or… look, come to think of it, I don’t give a damn why you’re showing me the hideous appendages. Just please stop. And don’t think painting your toenails bright colors to attract my attention to them is going to help. It just makes it easier to find them and step on them in crowded subway cars.

But you won’t stop. I know you. You’re going to keep on wearing these ridiculous complicated rat’s nests of velcro or leather straps to keep a the only part of your shoe I don’t care about – the bottom- hanging on that jumbled assortment of pedicured hammertoes you’re so proud of.

And so I’m going to compromise. I’m going to find the middle ground here, a kind of civil union we can all join in on, and live together in peace and harmony. If you’re going to wear sandals, by all means do so, and suffer only my derision. But if you wear socks with them, you’re going to be rounded up and sent to re-education camps where all the guards wear wing tip shoes with the little brass dingles on the toe, or steel toed ditch digger boots, and they’ll trod on your gnarly toes over and over until the sock is the only thing holding them together. You will then be forced to walk home, and be mocked like a fat ballerina the whole way.

I’m starting a negative advertising campaign right here and now. I’m going to make Lyndon Johnson showing that nuclear explosion if Goldwater got elected look like a immortelle from an admirer. I’m going to direct you to Sandals And Socks.

After you scroll down a little, you’re bound to join my crusade. Stop the madness!

Post Script:
I have it on good authority that the cat in the picture is wearing that collar to keep him from hanging himself in shame over his owner’s sandals and socks.

Again.