03/09/2000   English German
  Edition # 20  
San Francisco, 03-09-2000

Crazy About Sneakers
Figure [1]: Michael's sneakers

Michael I am known for only wearing sneakers these days. Of course, not just any cheap shoes from the supermarket, but top high-tech sneakers from Mizuno. Forget Adidas. Forget Nike. Forget Reebok. I hereby declare the "Mizuno Waverider" as the shoe of the season. Of the year. Maybe even of the decade. I need to elaborate a bit on my sneaker obsession. Here in America, everyone wears sneakers, from teenagers to the elderly, it's completely normal. And if you work in the software industry, sneakers are more than just footwear. If you're a programmer, you wear sneakers. Period. If you work in sales or marketing, you don't. Just like in Germany, where people distinguish between those who wear ties and those who don't. The latest insider term, by the way, is "Marketroid" for marketing people, a mix of marketing person and "android," meaning robot. Just a side note.

Back to the sneakers: More than a year ago, I bought a pair of "Mizuno Waverider" and was absolutely thrilled. Sneakers have a life cycle of about twelve months for me, so I recently set out to buy a new pair as the old ones were slowly reaching the stage of decay. But, oh dear! The darn sneaker chain "Footlocker," which usually offers a pretty good selection, simply didn't carry the model anymore. So I desperately tried to remember which branch of the shoe giant I had bought the pair from back then. And then it hit me: at the Valley Fair Shopping Center in San Jose, where we shopped with Sylvia and Richard at the time. One weekend, when we were once again hanging around the South Bay, we drove past this shopping center, and I persuaded Angelika to take a look inside -- and lo and behold: there was still a small "Footlocker" that even had a pair of "Waveriders" in stock. Eagerly, I asked the salesperson if they had a pair in my size 10 1/2 (size 44 in German standards), and he disappeared into the stockroom, shortly returning with just such a pair. Even though I had arrived in "Mizuno Waverider" sneakers of the same size, I quickly tried on the new ones, and, behold, they fit just like the old ones. I was thrilled. Cautiously, I asked the young salesperson if he also had a second pair in the same size. Again, he briefly disappeared into the stockroom and brought out a second pair. I rejoiced. He asked if this was the best sneaker model of my life, and I said "yes." The joy was certainly great, and I think the salesperson was allowed to take the rest of the afternoon off. I thought I heard champagne corks popping in the stockroom as we left the store. By the way, my new Perl book will have a small Mizuno logo on the cover with the note "Written in Mizuno Shoes." Oh yes. Well, you believe anything.

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