I am not ashamed to admit I have something of a shoe festish, as well as hypercritical judgments of what should be on other people’s feet.

When it came to my kids’ summer sandals this year, I even went so far as to do research – that’s the kind of shoe geek I am. As a parent, it’s quite tempting to take the cheapy route, figuring “eh, shoes from Target are fine. By the time the kids notice how crappy they are, their feet will have grown out of them. Oh, look, $200 Campers on sale in my size!”

But oh, those $8.99 Dora the Explorer plastic jobbies have a hidden price: First, in blisters that make your kid’s feet look like she’s been spending time at the Chinese torture chamber at the playground; then, a week after the calluses have toughened up, having to buy another pair because the manufactured-in-China-plastic straps break apart spontaneously on the way to the zoo, where the kid will develop a whole new set of pussing blisters from the electrical tape you keep in the glovebox that you used to repair Dora’s face.

What I needed were quality-made shoes for children, which cost as much as: A) a night of babysitting for you and your spouse B) a dinner a medium nice restaurant or C) an adorable pair of shoes for yourself. So I told El Yenta Man that date night this month would be microwave popcorn in front of “Deadwood” because we needed to shod the children.

At those prices, each kid was only getting one pair for the entire summer, so said shoes had to be indestructable, waterproof, dirtproof, look cute with any outfit and have an emergency clamp that prevented them from being thrown out the car window when its wearer was bored in traffic.

So I began the online searches, the coupon clipping, the interviews of random families (“Excuse me! Yes, sorry about running his feet over with the grocery cart, but how does your boy like those Keens?”)

I observed that many children and their parents have fallen under the horrific spell of Crocs, a type of plastic clog that could only look good on Martha Stewart while harvesting snap beans out of the prison vegetable garden. People seem to think that these cheerfully colored cottage cheese containers with ankle straps are actually fashionable, but not since jelly shoes have I wanted to go so far as to vomit on people’s feet. Which would be fine, because apparently one of the attractive attributes of Crocs is that you can just hose them right off.

Then: REI had a sale on Tevas. Unless you’ve been living in a cave, or perhaps Manhattan, you’ve seen the magical Velcro sandals that are sturdy as a sneaker and can be put through the washing machine. Inventor Mark Thatcher, who’s half Jewish and also from Arizona, created them for river enthusiasts who also love to hike in the desert. He chose the name Teva which means “nature” in Hebrew, after spending time in Israel as a young man.

Jewish shoes not made of holey plastic? The obvious choice for my children’s precious soles. Especially with a 30% off coupon.