Dahlia Kurtz: Always Write!

I live in Canada, but I don’t use the Canadian dollar as my source of valuation.

I don’t use the American dollar, the yen, or the pound either.

I use shoes.

Yes, shoes are my valuation source.

Admittedly, math has never been my forte, but shoes on the other hand – or foot, as it were – are.

While the loonie may determine cost, the shoe determines true value.

Here’s how it works:

Say you are shopping for a house, and it costs $200,000. Well, first, clearly you aren’t shopping in Toronto. Second, that house would be roughly the equivalent of purchasing 4,000 pairs of shoes.

(And yes, clearly, an expensive shoe to me is very different from an expensive shoe to Paris Hilton – and many Toronto women, many of whom have purchased homes in this city, and could somehow still afford shoes.)

In case you mathematicians out there are confused, allow me to elaborate.

Assuming, an average [pronounced: on sale] pair of shoes is 50 CAD, then $50 goes into $200,000 4,000 times.

Here’s another example.

Say your husband plays hockey. He’s a goalie. The most expenshoeve position to play.

And he tells you that his goalie pads will only be a couple thousand dollars. Well, you can then ascertain that those TWO stinking pads will cost more than the value of FOURTY pairs of shoes.

This on top of all the other overinflated and overshoed goaltending equipment.

But perhaps the most annoying, and most frequent player-who-takes-pucks-to-the-head cost, is the goalie stick. At the equivalent of two pairs of shoes at a pop, this sometimes monthly expense, leads you to believe that your husband should be spending more money (“shoes”) on his helmet, because surely those pucks are hitting his head a little too hard.

Anyshoe, I digress…

The bottom line to most is money. The bottom line to me is shoes.

Who cares about the dollar? Shoes don’t go up and down in value, 20 times a day. Shoes aren’t laden with tonnes of peoples’ dirt and germs all over them. Shoes don’t cause rifts in families.

You can’t have a money tree. But you can have a shoe tree.

And shoes, quite frankly, are the most universal currency. Everybody needs them, and everybody can use them.

Try using a Mexican peso (or a hundred) in Canada and see how far that gets you. Or try using an American dollar in Cuba. In fact, when I was in Cuba, I tipped the hotel maid with a pair of running shoes. So now, in addition to my biological mother, I have a Cuban mama too.

Despite what many people tell me, I know I will never change.

Change! I almost forgot. Another thing you don’t have to worry about with shoes. There’s no rounding up or rounding down. You never have to shoe-wrack your brain.

The only problem I ever encounter is when I go shopping for shoes.

Because then, I actually use the Canadian dollar as my valuation source.

P.S. Dear Husband… No, you can’t buy the new helmet now.