How a pair of synthetic booties have seen the author through a grueling book tour and an environmental calamity
Growing up a first-generation Filipina in a rural mostly white town, banal objects such as slippers took on outsized significance. Just like Mother Goose stories, Lunchables and VHS players (we had a Betamax), slippers – specifically my parents’ disinterest in and lack thereof – were proof that no matter how “American” we were, we were always inherently foreign. Rather than plush slippers, our family had flimsy tsinelas. The closest I could come to making these cheap, indoor flips-flops feel lavish was by wearing them with socks. (Today, as an adult, I believe this look to be an absolute Asian flex, but in childhood it was humiliating.)
In my teens and twenties, I messed around with Totes and Isotoner slippers, and swiped the complimentary terry slippers from hotels. But no version ever stuck. After becoming a parent in my thirties, I realized I needed to get serious about the need to be as comfortable as possible during the years’ worth of nights spent at home. So I took up the slipper hunt again.
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