Outside the Starbucks store on K at 14th Streets NW I espied a shoe shine man waiting, apparently, for some customers with shoes that needed shining but to no avail as everyone was wearing flip flops, or open shoes or sandals where the toes don't need the shiny stuff he was selling. He sat there chatting with a friend glancing at the passersby in the morning sun as I sipped my coffee. Did he get any customers that 15 minutes I was there? No. Did anyone stop by and ask how much it cost? No. Did he try and get pedestrians to stop and have their shoes shined? No. Was there a sign about how much it cost to have one's shoes shined? No. So I came to the conclusion it might have been a surveillance unit of some sort, especially as the white truck behind the set-up was unmarked and I've heard they do surveillance in plain sight, whoever they is and there's certainly little need for shoe shine men on K Street on a hot August morning.
The main branch of my bank has a shoe shine guy in the lobby. I'm not in there often, but I did have an occasion one time to see him with a customer. I used to earn a quarter a week by shining my dad's shoes on Saturday mornings. A lost art I think.
ReplyDeleteI agree. We used to shine our shoes every Sunday night to get ready for the next week of school. It was quite a production with little pots of polish and special rags and getting just the right amount of water etc.
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