CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE: PLATFORM SHOES HAVE BECOME A SOUND INVESTMENT

Traders are walking tall at the Chicago Board of Trade.

So are brokers and clerks, who have taken to wearing platform shoes so they can be more visible in that center of American capitalism poetically referred to as "the pit."

Essentially, traders, brokers and clerks stand in the pit and gesticulate to the folks above on whether they should buy or sell as stock prices and commodities futures fall.

If no one can see you while you're in the pit, no one receives the signal.

I guess the loud jackets and ugly ties (and uglier gestures) weren't doing the trick, and they needed a little extra boost.

So to speak.

An enterprising gentleman who works at CBOT (that's one of those acronyms that makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about) started selling the special shoes from the shoe room -- the little room where the market drones change their I-wear-a-suit-to-work shoes for the I'm-on-my-feet-all-day model -- at the exchange building.

The shoes have an inch and a half-thick sole, and the shoe guru adds up to another inch and a half.

If the shoes were any higher than 3 inches off the ground, says the shoe guru, they'd be unstable.

Better not let Alan Greenspan know what's going on or the entire stock market could crash.

High platforms and high heels are verboten, according to a spokesman for the Chicago Board of Trade, but it's up to floor officials to determine how high is too high.

And across town at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the special-order shoes are absolutely forbidden.

The shoe guru reports his customers hide their platforms under really long pants.

Bell bottoms, one would assume.

At a stock exchange?

I wonder what kind of shoes they wear on Wall Street?

Probably platforms with little Uzis hidden in them; New York's a tough town.

When I think of platform shoes, I think of the '70s, a decade known more for cheesy culture than commerce, I think.

In fact, I think of a young man my sister went to high school with.

Rudy was a true slave to fashion, sporting not only rainbow Afros from time to time, but also the absolute coolest platform shoes in the metro area.

One day, according to high school lore, Rudy came to school in a pair of Lucite platforms with little goldfish swimming around in the soles -- like the shoes Elton John sported in concert.

According to legend, the principal sent him home for cruelty to animals.

Rudy is now a makeup artist in Hollywood. In between making Meryl Streep look like she has a great accent, he's probably chuckling that all those really ugly clothes his parents hated are back in fashion.

Who knew polyester was going to make a comeback? Of course, it's not like it was ever going to go away; it's not biodegradable.

I guess the only way really to get rid of it is to have a yard sale or notify the EPA and wait for the guys in moonsuits to show up.

I think the whole '70s revival is a giant karmic joke on somebody's part, but I'm not sure I want to stick around for the punchline.

Before you head to the mall to experience the current fashion revival, you'd better check with your broker to make sure pork belly futures and platform shoes are really a sound investment.

And don't forget the goldfish.

Peggy O'Farrell is a copy editor for the Southeast Missourian.