"Are You Not Entertained?"

You're lookin' at the only pair of Gladiator sandals I have ever seen that ever made a lick of sense to me.

Most of them look like cheesy cast-offs from the Ben Hur backlot. They're flimsy and tragically antiquated, and they don't look like anything I'd ever be caught dead wearing in public. The only time they've ever even looked remotely plausible to me was when I saw them in Russell Crowe's tour-de-force, but that's only because "Gladiator" the movie was so frakkin' awesome, I've wanted to take on a couple snarling tigers in a stadium full of bloodthirsty peasants my DAMN self each time I've watched it.

So I'm guessing that when I saw these sandals in the window of the pretentiously hip shoe store in Georgetown last month, I was drawn by an irresistibly powerful subconscious force. I probably thought that Maximus himself would appear before me the first time I zipped them up. I DO recall thinking that, technically, I could purchase them, which infused me with a sense of bipolar power. And besides, I might get clonked on the head by a piece of concrete hurled by an angry Muslim protester shortly after I returned to Nairobi, so it didn't really matter whether I was spending myself into oblivion.

Regardless of what I was thinking, I'm guessing you're thinking they probably weren't worthy of being the most expensive pair of footwear I've ever bought. Although you gotta admit the leather craftsmanship is pretty dang kewl. And when I wore these bad boys yesterday, I felt strong and hip and au so courant. I felt like I could trod the road to Damascus wearing these sandals. I felt like I could slay Maximus himself.

And then I remembered that they cost more than a lot of Kenyans make in a year, and I snapped the hell out of it.