Shoe And Tell: Musings By A Shoe Whore

Heeled by pain

 “It was a stark choice: shoes or food; beauty or sustenance;

the sensible or the self-indulgent. “I’ll take the shoes,” she said firmly.” 
― Alexander McCall Smith, Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

 I love shoes. They can make or break an outfit… or a leg. Does anyone else remember those uber-high cork wedges from the 70’s? Mine were white peep toes that worked up to a 4-inch wedge in the back. Clunky and, in retrospect, pretty freak’n unattractive, they worked well with flared jeans or midi skirts. I never had the legs to pull off wearing mini-skirts or I certainly would have gone there too.

As much as I thought I was styling, it’s a good thing I come from sturdy peasant stock. My ankles survived the trend intact. Some friends who opted to be on the “wedge” of fashion hurt themselves. Walking. In shoes. But I digress.

Shoe fashions, particularly for women, tend towards a certain guaranteed amount of pain. We all know that. Back in the day I could care less if I ended up with blisters or swollen feet. As long as the shoes were cute I would endure the outcome. Sorta.

There was the time, just out of high school, when I told my grandmother I had gotten a job as a waitress. “Oh! Then you need cute shoes,” she said. “That’s what catches a man’s eye and gets you the good tips.” She winked at me, and Grandma was not a winker. Either that or her cataracts were acting up. Hard to tell.

I was a little baffled by her statement, as this was my grandmother who thought any and all fun things were sinful. Like burn in hell, sinful. She wanted me to catch a man’s eye? Whaaaa? Anyway, I was really, really, baffled when the next day she handed me a shoebox. “Here, these are for you!” Her eyes shone with excitement.

Grandma didn’t have a lot of money, so for her to buy me a pair of shoes was pretty dang meaningful. I opened the box and saw gleaming white high heels. There is white, and then there is WHITE.

“Um.” It was the best I could manage in my conflicted state of mind. “Thank you.”

Grandma, in high heels, in winter. Just say’n.

“Yep,” she said. “These are just what you need for your job.” The pride she felt at helping me attain femme fatale status was obvious. I took the shoes, hugged Grandma, and wore them the next shift.

By the end of the night, my feet were raw and bleeding. The non-stop pace of a busy restaurant was not compatible with high heels, and certainly not new ones. At least not on this woman.

Do I need to mention that I had not “caught the eye” of even one man or been showered with gratuities? Apparently a trail of blood and a face grimacing in pain is just not that sexy…with all due respect to books like Fifty Shades of Grey.

As soon as I scraped together enough tip money I bought a pair of white Earth shoes. With wide toes and a lowered back heel, they were as ugly as the sins I was supposed to commit in the high heels, but blissfully, blister-free, comfortable.

I could not, would not, tell Grandma that her present had crippled me. The high heels went in the closet and stayed in a shoebox prison. If Grandma asked about the shoes I got vague and changed the subject. It was just better that way.

Although I made many shoe mistakes going forward I learned a lesson from the waitressing/shoe debacle. I do have limits! Who knew?

Boots make me thigh.

My husband understands my attraction to shoes, and by “understand” I mean he hates it. In fact, if we are driving past a DSW, the pressure he puts on the car’s gas pedal is proportionate to the rate of my head swivel.

Me: “Hey! There’s a DSW. Could we stop in for a…”

Him: “La la la. What? Did you want to stop? Dang! We’re already past the turn off.”

Maybe it’s just me, but the fact that he’s going 80-miles an hour in a 30-mile an hour zone just to get me beyond a shoe store is messed up. He’s breaking the law; I’m just interested in shoes. Who has the problem? Me? I don’t think so.

But then this is the guy who owns maybe six pair of shoes—which includes his winter boots and a pair of disgusting tennis shoes “for everyday”—and who refuses to unlace the laces before jammng his feet into them. All of his shoes look fairly normal from the front and butt-fugly from the back.

Male role models

Recently he was going through security at the airport in Atlanta. The TSA agent told him to take off his shoes.

“But I’m 79,” he said.

The agent glared at him. “I SAID, take off your shoes.”

My husband complied. He walked through the x-ray machine, passed inspection, and jammed on his shoes without undoing the laces.

Sometimes it’s not the style of the shoes that makes the statement. It’s the person sorta kinda wearing them.