trending

 Just finished cleaning out my email inboxes. Aaah, so satisfying. Last night, my [PEO] chapter had an "offical visit" - an audit of sorts. Health checkup of sorts. Happens about every 4 years.

Since I'm currently the chapter prez, I feel I was in the hot seat the most. I think it went well - a few glitches that were out of my control - but we survived. I mean, what're they gonna do? Fire us? Anyway, the "test" had been looming on my calendar for a while, and now I'm glad it's in the rear view.

I am a bit concerned about one of our officers. She seems a bit spacey in recent months. I don't know her all that well outside of meetings, so maybe that's just how she is, but I'm seriously wondering if her mind is going. 

So that's behind me, now back to mediocrity.

I've noticed a return of the men's mullet. All the rage in the late 80's - early 90's, it seems to be making a comeback.  Can't say that I'm a fan, but people can do what they want with their own hair.

And like any other fashion, it looks good on some, not on others.

A year or so ago, at the testing center, we had a man come in somewhat regularly, testing for water professional certifications. He had a glorious mullet that actually looked good on him (really, we all agreed).

We proctored him better than average, if y'know what I'm saying.  Proctored the sh*t out of him, admiring his luscious hairdo, whenever he came in for various levels of certification. Plus, he was just a nice guy.

And okay, we nicknamed him "Water Treatment Fabio"

He came in again last week for another certification after his ~yearlong absence. He'd shaved the mullet. Very short on top now, fading to nothing in the back and sides.  It was Party Girl who first realized it was Water Treatment Fabio. She remembered his real name, and when his face seemed vaguely familiar, she put it together. 

I hope we didn't make him too self conscious when we all registered our surprise at his new appearance. But certainly, we couldn't have been the only ones. The mullet was really that glorious. 

I asked if he missed his mullet at all.

"Yeah, sometimes", he replied, while rubbing the stubble on the back of his head.

I kinda miss it too.

made for selling?

I was working yesterday when 18-year-old girl came in for a test. I got her checked in and went to do a final "pocket check" before seating her for her exam. She wore a fashionable hoodie, black leggings, and... there they were: a pair of Nike Air Jordan 4s, fire red.

youtube

How did I know, and why did I notice? Welp, for some reason, my reddit feed started including posts from the r/sneaker subreddit.  I follow very few subreddits - our city's, and a couple "mathy" ones - otherwise I just lurk and see what crosses my path.

So these "sneakerhead" posts started showing up, probably because I showed an interest in fashion or style or culture or some such at one point or another. So I was all, "what's up with all these shoes in my reddit?", "what's up with a subreddit = r/sneakers?"

I knew a little about people paying exorbitant amounts of money for certain shoes.  But I had no idea how big of an industry it is. Yeezys come to mind, in light of Kanye West's recent fallout.

I don't even remember how I came to know of Yeezys (Yeezies?) and the like. Maybe because I often breathe the same air as millennials and gen Zer's?

Anyway, in a nutshell, "sneakerheads" are people who buy, sell, and trade highly sought after shoes. They also, apparently, sometimes wear the shoes. Y'know, for street cred.

Having this parade of sneakers show up whenever I opened reddit plus having time on my hands during winter break, I googled and youtubed a bit, and learned sneaker trading is a billions of dollars industry, expected to continue to grow. This Ted Talk was well done and informative. It's 7 years old now. The phenomenon has since grown even further.

I find it rather bananas. It's like the stockmarket with no fees, no regulations. Middle school kids are playing with thousands of dollars, tens of thousands. Social media has added fuel the fire. I'm glad there was no real social media in the Beanie Baby days.  I let reddit know that I'm not interested in seeing people's sneaker acquisitions/ collections, but it was kinda interesting to learn of this economic subculture.

I complimented the young test-taker on her sneakers, figuring they were probably a prized possession for her. She was noticeably giddy that someone - an old lady, no less - had noticed. 

Here I am, this 58-year-old clutterphobic mimimalist, opening my reddit to a parade of thousands-of-dollars pairs of sneakers and whole-closet sneaker collections owned by "kids". 

Well, it gave me something to draw.

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Linking up the week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

4. Write a blog post inspired by the word: cost.