Ah, spring. As we put away the heavy sweaters, open the windows and prepare to revel in Pittsburgh's annual allotment of 59 sunny days, we savor these two delicious little words:

Tax refund.

Stimulus package?

Well, those are good. But remember, money, like Donald Trump, is just a tool. The important thing is what you do with it, which brings me to these two words: Shoe shopping.

Being female, I am predisposed to enjoy shoe shopping in a way that men cannot understand. (Before you roll your eyes, men, I have two words for you: fantasy baseball. Please.)

I am dismayed, however, by the kind of shoes I'm expected to buy. They are complicated. They are neon bright and flowery and patterned and cost more than a fine meal. I have a major problem with spending a lot of money on pretty new shoes: The day they come out of the box is the last day they will look good, because the mean streets of the city will chew them up like a slow pigeon.

Delicate, girlie shoes are perfect for women who are whisked from carpet to carpet in limousines, but some of us take the T. Our shoes are soaked by Arts-Festival-style monsoons and stained by road salt. And have you seen the streets Downtown?

Broken curbs. Uneven bricks. Subway grates that swallow spiky heels and shred the delicate leather -- then pull the whole shoe off and make you trip and drop your expensive matching purse in ...

Two words: Public spitting.

Being short and close to the ground -- and wearing heels fairly often, with only minor injuries so far -- I spend a lot of time looking at the sidewalks, scanning for hazards in my path. It's like walking on a beach full of dead jellyfish.

Here a gob, there a gob, everywhere a gob, gob.

I watch men in front of me, so that when they lean over and hock, I'll see where the fresh oyster falls and walk around it.

I wait on the T platform as a guy coughs and gurgles, then emits that scraping rattle and the inevitable "Ptoo." I'm waiting to see whether he spits onto the tracks or onto the floor of the platform, so we can both admire his creation.

In winter, the gobs freeze and are preserved for days.

I understand where all the mucus is coming from. Pittsburghers are devoted smokers, and smoking creates a lot of extra phlegm. If we could figure out how to turn mucus into a replacement for fossil fuels instead of a coating for concrete, OPEC would have to open up a chain of lemonade stands.

The part I don't understand is what possesses anyone to think his loogie is a welcome addition to the urban landscape that I want to see and walk in.

"Sometimes, you gotta spit," a male colleague shrugged.

"Sometimes, you gotta [insert any of several distasteful bodily emissions here]," I replied, "but you don't just let loose on the sidewalk." Unless it's St. Patrick's Day, anyway.

Public spitting is harmless enough, I suppose, except that it spreads tuberculosis and the flu. And it is dead sexy. I can't help fantasizing about a guy who has just opened his car door at a light to unclog a lung. Rowr.

I found a piece in the British Medical Journal from 2003 in which the editor, Richard Smith, wrote "One of the joys of being old is that you can spot long term social trends. When I was a boy the world was full of signs saying: 'No spitting.' People do still spit in the street, but it's now highly deviant."

Flowery medical jargon aside, public spitting is one more old-fashioned tradition we preserve hereabouts. Even Third World cities have banned it, but here ...

Oh, wait. What's this in the Pittsburgh Code of Ordinances, Chapter 601, Public Order?

"601.10 SPITTING

"(a) No person shall spit or expectorate upon any sidewalk or upon the floors of any public place or conveyance.

"601.14 VIOLATION AND PENALTY

"(a) Any person violating any provision of this Chapter, unless otherwise specified in this section shall be fined a minimum of fifteen dollars ($15.00) plus court costs for an initial violation and up to five hundred dollars ($500.00) plus court costs for each additional violation."

I'll be darned.

The city may not want to acknowledge that excess expectoration is a problem, but, hey, if the shoe fits, wear it straight to the bank. Maybe the folks so diligently writing parking tickets could stroll by a bus stop now and then and make repeat offenders cough up a real payday.

Two words: Revenue stream.