They say it’s the shoes that makes the man. When it comes to women, shoes make them…uncomfortable.
We truly are slaves to fashion. If we want to look good, it generally comes at the sake of our comfort. Women wear the weirdest and sometimes painful things simply to look good. Thongs, stiletto heels, girdles, strapless dresses, heck even panty hose are insanely uncomfortable. Wearing these items usually leave us limping, tugging, pulling, stressing, feeling as though we’re going to be cleaved in two, yet we keep wearing them.
Why? Because they’re cute!
About two years ago, I purchased the cutest pair of espadrilles. I’ve always wanted a pair, so when I saw this pair of hot shoes, combined with their sale price tag, I couldn’t pass them up.
So, for the record, I will present Exhibit A: The Shoes.
Having purchased my lovely new shoes, I couldn’t wait to strap them on and wear them to work with the outfit I had purchased during the same shopping expedition.
As Monday morning rolled around, I hopped out of bed, did my daily morning routine, then slid my feet into the adorable shoes. I wound up the straps, leaving them a wee bit loose so that I could do things like walk, and took my first steps in those gorgeous espadrilles.
I noticed the shoes pinched a teensy bit in the toes but put that down to new shoe awkwardness. (In my 30 years of wearing shoes, I can honestly say that I’ve never owned an open-toe dress shoes. The only shoes where my little piggies ever had freedom were my chunky Sketcher sandals or my gadzillion pairs of flip flops.)
At work, everyone noticed the sexy shoes, commenting on how much they liked them. I felt awesome, not only did I personally love my shoes (and the fact they put me at my favorite height of 5’9″), but so did the entire School of Education! I was on top of the world!
But then tragedy began to form. But with me being the aloof goddess that I am, I didn’t have a clue of what was going on.
I noticed that my feet kept sliding forward in the shoes, causing a wee bit of pressure on my toes. I’d slide my feet back in the shoes and press on with whatever I was doing. But when I had to climb to the third floor of the building three times in an hour, things just started breaking down. The bottoms of my feet, just below my pinkie toe, started to ache a bit. Whenever I sat, I’d readjust my feet, alleviating the pain.
It was okay; I had things under control.
While things started to go wrong with the shoes at 7:15 a.m., when I strapped them on my feet, I didn’t get the message until noonish. As I walked over to meet Liz in Scofield Hall, tragedy struck.
Liz works down in the building of the basement, and as you all are well aware by now, stairs are my mortal enemy. They’re evil, I tell you!
But I digress.
Anytime I walk down stairs, I use the utmost caution. When you have a sordid history of falling down stairs, you grab hold of the railing for dear life. But just as I stepped down that solid marble staircase and thought to myself, They really need to have a railing to hold on to for people walking down the right side of the stairs, my shoes hit the skids and I hit my butt, sliding down a flight of stairs on my tush.
Say it with me kids: OUCH!
As I always do when laying it agony at the bottom of a flight of stairs I’ve just fallen down, I giggled (I can’t help it, because I seriously will not cry in public if at all possible). Sitting there, I took a quick inventory of the damage to make sure we didn’t have to go to the emergency room as opposed to Muddy’s during our lunch break. I bruised my forearm and smushed the middle toe and ring finger toe (it’s back!) on my left foot. In other words, I’d live.
Pulling myself back to an upright position, I slowly (snails were blowing me away) hobbled down the final flight of stairs then rounded the corner to Liz’s office. And wouldn’t you know it, she didn’t even hear the crash that was Mindy falling down the stairs.
Heading to Muddy’s for paninis and Cokes, I had to walk awkwardly to accommodate the bruised muscles I had hurt and my toes. The top of the pads of my feet began to ache in protest. We needed to get there quick so I could take the weight off my feet a bit, but walking fast only further enraged the blister gods gathering on my feet.
After lunch, my feet took further offense in the idea that I could walk back to campus in those beautiful shoes. So I ripped them off, forcing myself to endure scalding hot sidewalks all the way back to the School of Education. Back at the office, I gave myself a treat, keeping those espadrilles off until I was forced to trudge back up to the third floor two more times.
By the time 5 p.m. rolled around, my feet were pissed off. I rushed home and into the loving comfort of my flip flops but not before enduring six blisters.
Not such cute shoes anymore.
My feet went from looking like human feet to something like what you’d expect to see on a zombie whose been shuffling around on his undead, decaying feet for three years. Okay, not really, but they really hurt.
Needless to say, those shoes, while super cute, have not been worn since. I haven’t yet given them away. I keep them on with the deluded belief that one day I’ll give them another shot and things won’t go as bad. But honestly, I’m scared. Scared of those super cute shoes.
Mindy Kinnaman 