New Shoes

I’m not a “shoe girl.” I’m not one of those girls who has a different pair of shoes for every outfit. In fact, I think I have a grand total of nine pairs. I’m not one of those girls who loves high heels. In fact, I kind of hate the way high heels make me taller and make so much noise when I walk. I’m not the kind of girl who likes to shoe shop for fun. No, I wear the same three pairs of shoes until they are ragged and only shop for shoes when it is absolutely necessary. (I think I’ve mentioned of late that I don’t like to shop generally.) I’m not a shoe girl. I’d rather be barefoot, always.

But today, today I bought three new pairs of shoes:

I’ve been walking in Freedom Park before work each morning and getting ready in the gym bathroom. Well, today, while I was getting ready, I realized that I had forgotten to put work shoes in my gym bag – crap! Living what seems hundreds of miles from where I work, returning home to grab a pair was not an option. And being 7:45 am, there were no shops open that sell appropriate shoes. In fact, the third tier option – the pharmacy – wasn’t even open yet. But the clerk who was coming in for work said that they did, in fact, sell flip flops. So I waited outside the pharmacy, wearing my very professional looking dress and tennis shoes, until 8 o’clock when Rite Aid opened.

So the flip flops – the flip flops were awful! They were made of foam. They were wedges. They sparkled a little. They were brown – my dress was black. But they were better than my Nike running shoes, kind of. So I bought the freaking foam-wedge flip flops.

Well, from there, the day just went downward. Nothing of particular horror happened, but it was just crummy. I just felt crummy.

I blame the freaking foam-wedge flip flops. Every time I looked down at my feet I felt out of place – like I didn’t fit in and stuck out like a sore thumb. Every time I walked across the room – flip flop, flip flop – the noise reminded me of how ridiculous those things were. Confidence was shot. And what can you achieve without confidence. Nothing.

F-ing foam-wedge flip flops ruined my day.

So on the way home, I stopped at DSW where I had a coupon. I bought two pairs of brand new shoes – sensibly cute flats, though one pair is red. Today, I spent $50 to buy three pairs of shoes. And while I know that a lot of people spend twice as much on just one pair of shoes, I do not. I blame the flip flops, really.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll wear my new red shoes and see if I have a better day.

“Hey, I put some new shoes on and suddenly everything is right
I said, hey, I put some new shoes on and everybody’s smiling . . .” – Paulo Nutini