Croc You!

There's no telling what will inflame people's passions.

Ever behind the times, I didn't discover Crocs until last summer. My first pair arrived the day before we left for our cruise, and boy was I glad they did. Alaska is wet and none too warm in September; regular shoes would have sprouted ferns by the end of the week. I ordered another pair -- this time without holes -- when we got home.

I like to describe myself as a shut-in, but I go out often enough to know there are lots of Crocs around. Especially at the dog park. I've never seen them worn to the opera, but that's probably because I don't go.

It wasn't until a snippy little piece by The Post's fashion critic that I realized some people were actually offended by Crocs. Girlfriend could use some ExLax, I thought. But she's not alone. In yesterday's Consumed column, Rob Walker described a pair of bustling parallel subcultures: Croc lovers and Croc haters.

I checked out both camps and found the lovers lame and vaguely sad -- not unlike, say, doll collectors. The haters, I figured, would at least be funnier and more creative, yet they were as lame as their counterparts, which was somehow even more depressing. Their entire platform is that Crocs are ugly. Granted. But they're cute-ugly
-- like shar-pei puppies, to quote the friend who turned me on to them. There are plenty of unappealing shoes on the market. It's not like Crocs are the Ann Coulter of footwear, so why the hate?

For a brief moment I got all huffy: The world is going to hell, and these people are spending all this time and effort on a pointless pursuit. But then a chilling awareness set in: I'm even worse, because I'm writing about them.