Be the signal

Paraphrasing, or perhaps flagrantly misquoting, Gordon Gekko:

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that green — for lack of a better word — is good.

Green is right.

Green works.

Green clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

Green, in all of its forms — green for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind.

Some weeks back, we were driving past a shoe shop in the middle of the city, and I saw a pair of shoes in the window. Unsurprising, perhaps, but that would be a very mundane description of the event.

No, I did not simply see a pair of shoes in the window: I saw a delicious pair of bright green shoes, on the highest shelf, bathed in the light of an exquisite gold halo. They were beautiful in their ugliness.

Surely, no one else would buy a pair of shoes such as these! Surely, I could walk in, declare that they were the ugliest shoes in all creation and strike a deal to take them off the shop’s hands for a paltry AUD$20, to save them the hassle of trying to sell them to a disgusted public.

All in the car agreed: It was a sure thing.

Three weeks later, Pia and I ventured out to the shoe shop to see if we could strike that deal. But the ugly haloed shoes were nowhere to be found. While Pia looked for some comfy flats, I tried on other green shoes.

It was a hopelessly big-nosed, bejeansed Cinderella-meets-Goldilocks expedition: None were right. They had darker and lighter greens, miserable mixes with yellows and reds, boots and volleys, but none were as beautiful as the vision I saw in the window that night.

I asked the shoe seller if he remembered the haloed display, which set off mutterings among the staff. “Did they have clovers on the side?” asked one. Clovers? On a shoe? I had no idea, since I saw them from a distance.

All I knew was that they were green, appeared rubbery, and looked like the quintessential Nike shoe. In fact, I was pretty sure they had the Nike swoop on the side.

But clovers? Surely you jest.

The shoe seller raised his eyebrows at the staff, and there was an uncomfortable silence. “I believe I have the shoe you’re looking for, sir, but it is on hold for another customer.”

Another customer wanted the ugly shoe? This did not bode well for the deal we hoped to negotiate.

The shoe seller ducked away into his storage quarters, and returned with a parcel. In it, lay two beautifully ugly green shoes, the very same ones as I had seen in the window that night! Below the crisp, golden swoosh lay a pattern of four leaf clovers.

“These are a limited edition, made especially for St. Patrick’s Day”, explained the shoe seller. But their golden halo was diminished by a sticker which read, “For Mr. Johnson”. With absent-minded cruelty, the shoe seller rewrapped the shoes and returned them to their parcel.

“We do have a pair in your size at our shop in Chatswood!” cried one of the staff, as the huddle of assistants turned to us, beaming with customer service delight. Without warning, my face broke out into a broad customer satisfaction smile, and I realised that I must have those shoes. At whatever price.

The very next day we procured the shoes in Chatswood, for an alarming AUD$200. They join a special collection of green objects, and replace my previous classic shoes wrought green: A well-worn and well-loved pair of bright green Dunlop KT26s.

Welcome to the family.