Just Like a Girl

I don't really consider myself a girlie-girl. I don't like pink, I love watching sports, and I don't scream when I see a spider or freak out when there's a dead bat in the living room (yes, it's happened). But when it comes to shoes, well, you've got me there - I'm definitely a girl. I like shoes so much that I don't let myself go shoe shopping very often. I usually end up buying a couple pairs in November with the annual Pigeon Forge Shop-Til-You-Drop trip, and maybe a sandal or two in the spring, but that's it. I have a hard time controlling myself, so I simply forbid it.

But over the past few weeks there have been a few incidents that clearly called for the need for new shoes. My black boots that are in such bad shape that they should have been thrown away at the end of last year, but I loved the fit so I was holding out for another season. Then the button on the side of one of them fell off, so that there's this flap of "(not) leather" hanging off the boot. No more black boots. My brown boots are great to look at, but they kill my feet, so I end up not wearing them very often. I also have a severe affinity for sling-back shoes, but my one pair of black heels includes a left shoe that has stretched to the point that the sling falls off my heel after a couple steps. This is not good when you're running, literally, to a committee meeting. Finally, I realized I only had one pair of dress brown heels, too, and they are very, very narrow. So I hate to wear them to work when I know I may be on my feet for 12 or more hours. They're fine for church or dinner out, but not for a full day.

Based on all of that, I decided that the situation had risen to the level that my strict moratorium on shoe buying had to take a day or two off. Last Friday I stopped at one discount shoe store and ended up with 2 pair of boots (black and brown) and a pair of brown high heels. All had been on sale, so I felt pretty good about the splurge. Then on Saturday I went to a different discount shoe store, relatively new to the Louisville area, and that's when things got way out of control. Four pairs of shoes and one pair of boots later, I walked out thinking I would have to eat saltine crackers for the next few weeks until I could pay off the credit card. The boots I bought on Saturday will replace one pair that I bought on Friday, because I liked them better, but when all is said and done, I ended the weekend with 7 pairs of shoes & boots more than I'd started out owning. This is why I'm not allowed to go shoe shopping!

And even though I heard all the dire weather predictions for snow and ice (all of which came true), of course I had to wear one of my new pairs of shoes on Monday. And no, I wasn't even sensible enough to wear the boots. So there I was on Monday night, having fought my way back to Louisville in the snow and wind, at the grocery store, delicately stepping through the sludge in my brand new black kitten heel shoes to get milk and something for dinner.

A girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.