I’ve always vowed that nothing I pay more than $200 for will touch the ground.
That includes shoes. Therefore you will find me searching out bargains for classic or stylish footwear.
Fortunately for me, I have a system and a sister. Doubly fortunate, like me, my sister is of average foot size, has a nose for style and is instinctively drawn to a bargain. More importantly, she tends to overshop just a wee bit in that department.
This is where I come in.
On the occasional trip overseas to her home, my first stop is the closet. Sometimes she will willingly give up some pairs. At other times she will promise me if she doesn’t wear them that she’ll pass them my way. When it comes to her shoes I have the patience of Job. I once waited five years for a pair of classic shoes she had.
Folks, you’ll understand why if you ever see me in them.
In 2010 after a particularly extreme raid of Ann’s closet I didn’t buy a single pair of shoes for two years. It just didn’t make sense. I should explain that her talent for shoe selection also extends to handbags but I don’t benefit from the fallout as much there.
My “ground rule” is the same for bags.
Therefore I was struck on Sunday during my church’s scholarship service to hear senior teacher Sister Carol talk about $300 pieces of carpet. That was her comparison for some of those $300 North Face bags which sold out before the start of school and had store owners wishing they had ordered more.
Three weeks into the Christmas term and the must-have expensive bags were now littering the classroom floors, trampled by the indifferent students. Does that make any sense? An $80 bag would endure the same hardship.
Week three had passed, my church colleague was at pains to point out, and as a teacher she should know how crucial that time is for a student.
I ask, with all the consternation in the world: What parent would allow a child to hold them over a barrel for a bag? As a parent I cannot come up with a scenario in which a child says he/she is not going to school unless they get a special brand of bags or shoes.
The authorities need to find the delinquent parents and charge them well before a term or two have passed. Isn’t someone supposed to be monitoring these situations and alerting the relevant department?
If the recent charging of parents is anything to go by, then a great deal of damage is already done by the time the authorities intervene. The children are out of school for months before anyone is moved to act. Who is to blame for that piece of delinquency in passing on the information?
In a matter of years some parents will look back, probably jokingly, at the time little J didn’t go to school because of a bag. By then it will be too late to instill discipline in the adult version.
J will no doubt become one of those children that will cause mainly mummy sleepless nights until the law intervenes. Mum or dad will have no choice but to say take him/her away for the sake of their health and sanity.
Then J will have no choice in what he wears or eats or where he sleeps.
• Antoinette Connell is the DAILY NATION Editor. Email [email protected]
