By Ashton Darracott

Brisbane has been lucky, throughout these unprecedented times, to have avoided major lockdowns throughout the Covid19 outbreak. So lucky, in fact, that many deemed it absolutely f*cking vital that the moment a 72-hour lockdown was being enforced, they needed to rush down to Woollies and buy enough food to make a three-course a la carte dinner for 30 guests (that they couldn’t even invite over) for every night for the duration of the lockdown. Everyone is also making sure to influence on Instagram while getting up to date on their fitness-related New Year’s Resolutions. But lockdown hasn’t been all bad for everyone impacted.

For the average legal student and junior lawyer (>3 years PAE), the Birks and the RMs don’t see much of each other. When the RMs are hard at work in the office or scuffing up the mall of Brunswick Street, the Birks have waited patiently at home. When the Birks are out for a trip up or down the coast, or out for coffee, the RMs have weathered hours on end in their solitude.

With getting on the beers off the table and rubbing shoulders on the Fridays d-floor not possible for a weekend, these two old souls have kindled what many would describe as an unlikely acquaintance. A friendship, even. A fiery, sibling-like rivalry could be expected of the two shoes, but having spent some time in the same boat: rubbing shoulders on the shoe rack at the front door, they’ve discovered that they have more in common than they were ever led to believe.

For one, they both share similar upbringings that started off for functional, rather than aesthetic, purposes. RMs were born out of the dust and drought of the hardy Australian outback: footwear designed for the true-blue Aussie bush battler. Birkenstocks descended from a small-town German shoemaker who created a contoured shoe insert into a comfortable, moldable shoe. RMs were for Aussie ochres, and Birks for people who needed orthopaedic arch support.

Fast forward to the 21st century, both footwear now exist in the same social class. The RMs do still have a cruel tendency to dangle their dearer price tag over the Birks, but the Birks just laugh and ask the Concrete Cowboy what the carpet of the Qantas Club Lounge is like. This tends to get the RMs pretty cramped up. A retort about how the single piece of stitched leather makes them the perfect swagman’s shoe follows. But now, their bantering is more affectionate than anything else.

The Journal was fortunate enough to fasten an exclusive interview with one young professional with enough disposable income to afford such footwear.

“When they met, I noticed that they did get off on the wrong foot a bit. But they hated each other for awhile there. Sharpest tongues I’d ever met. The RMs were always a bit of an uptight old codger. I’ll give it to the ‘Stocks; they’re more chill, not as clingy and jealous as the RMs. They give me a bit more space to breath and they’re quite flexible, fitting in with my plans a lot. Though I will say the Remmies could carry me through thick and thin, you know? Just so reliable.

“I’m happy for them, I really am, but it’s gotten a bit out of hand with this weekend inside in the lockdown. They’ve gone from telling each other to put a sock in it, to basically becoming solemates. Whatever. I might as well just run with it. Good for them for breaking each other in.”