The Scourge of Mandals

If you're a female human and you wear flip-flops to the office, at a wedding, to worship services, or to the store, it means you're lazy, slack, and a total slob. But if you're a male human wearing flip-flops (or the "formal" cousin of the zori, the mandal) more than 50 feet from a geological formation where waves are slapping sand, you're lazy, slack, a total slob, and a spoiler of the environment, because inflicting hairy, scaly, enormous pedal digits upon the helpless reduces the common denominator of acceptable public behavior to the spittoon level.

The Bitch has long since resigned herself to the inhumane sartorial practices of our quaint city, but when recent research at a gallery opening revealed 60 percent mandal noncompliance, she sought counseling and succor from Coral Gables couturier René Ruiz.

"If men must wear sandals, well, they should only be worn in the summer, preferably only on Sunday afternoons," Ruiz advises. "And at the beach, flip-flops are cute, but if not at the beach, there is no reason for any man to be wearing flip-flops. Ever."

The Bitch urges readers to employ social pressure (staring, ridicule, spewing shocked mouthfuls of Bailey's Irish Cream) to eradicate this visual blight and prod the character of public spaces in a mandal-less direction more congenial to her sensibilities.