GRGR 31 Shit'n'Shinola

[Paul Mackin]

On Sun, 30 Jul 2000, jbor wrote:

> 
> 
> ----------
> >From: Paul Mackin <pmackin at clark.net>
> >
> 
> > no self
> > respecting shoe shine boy would have allowed a product an execrable as
> > Shinola into his shoeshine box.
> 
> I would imagine that a shoeshine boy ("self-respecting"? -- certainly Red
> Malcolm has/had self-respect but I don't know that that would have had
> anything to do with him being forced to make a living in a men's room as a
> shoeshine boy) would use the cheapest most effective available product so
> that his profit margin was greatest. Shinola would have been very black and
> shiny in the short term I imagine, and in the context of his workplace (the
> lighting, inebriated customers, the range of shoe conditions presenting to
> him at this venue as opposed to Wall Street for example, how much the white
> students could afford or would be willing to pay etc) it was probably a very
> prudent choice.



Shinola would be smelly in the short run and apt to run off on
one's clothes but as you say who'd notice. Especially after a trip down 
the toilet. The shoe shining was a loss leader, wasn't it? The real
profits were in the sale of booze and contraceptives. Probably worse
things too but whose complaining.

I would have thought that self-respecting when used on the p-list or in
most other contexts (at least in America) could be assumed to be
ironic--sometimes with more than one level of irony. No self respecting
stickup man would carry less than a .38. No self respecting hooker would
fail to look in her johns billfold while he was asleep.   

Joke:

What's the difference between shit and shinola?

I don't know.

Then I'm never going to let you shine MY shoes.