Compensation

I thought of Rita's post about the usually-irrelevant New York Times "Style" section when I read the following description of a shoe that Clementine and I initially assumed carried a Freemasonry symbol. No such luck:

All spring, it was virtually impossible to walk a city block without treading on a pair of Reva Ballerina flats from Tory Burch: rubber-soled, whisper-light leather flats with comfy elastic backs. If they sported double T logos instead of double Cs, well, they cost less than $200 a pair, so you could compensate by buying them in every color.

Translated into English: You are immensely wealthy, but not so much so that you will instinctively buy ballet flats from Chanel. This puts you into a deep depression, from which you attempt to emerge by purchasing many pairs of ballet flats from a less renowned designer. Tragedy with a silver lining.