Lately, I have been in desperate need of shoes. I’m not one of those women who drool and obsess over footwear. My expressions of longing and affection are usually reserved for living, breathing beings. Well, and chocolate cake. You also won’t find me very knowledgeable about fashion and trends in footwear. The truth is- I just don’t care. I’m practical. I’m not going to replace all my shoes every year to keep up with the endless, vicious, cruel, never-ending cycle of trends. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t stick out like a pimp at a Promise Keeper’s conference. I at least wear stuff from this decade.
With Christmas approaching, I find it incredibly difficult to justify spending money on myself. There seemed to be only one way to meet my need without the guilt. I went to Target. My first trip was to the new Target in West Nashville. As I scanned the shoe aisles, I spotted the perfect pair. Perfect, except they were a size 5. Since I’m not an elf or a fairy, and I have four other toes that would need to get in the shoe, I despaired over my find… that wasn’t really a find- only a realization that the perfect shoe I was looking for was taunting me like some cruel neighborhood kid, riding by on his bike, eating a Snickers when I’m sitting on the porch sipping water and nibbling on a grain of rice. One pair. Size 5.
As any self-respecting person would after being taunted in such a manner, I squealed tires out of the Target parking lot and spit my gum at that bullseye on the side of the building. Some woman chased after me, shouting expletives. If she hadn’t been so ornery, I might have been nice enough to tell her that peanut butter is good for getting gum out of hair.
I headed to my usual Target- the one closest to my house. Imagine my excitement when I spotted several boxes of the same shoe. I happily pulled a size 8 from the shelf and tried it on. It fit, but I thought a 7.5 would be much better. Perfect probably. I looked around. No size 7.5. Still holding the size 8 box in my hand, I discovered one lone shoe on the shelf… size 7.5! This was going to be my day! I looked around for its mate. Hmmm. How hard could it be to find one shoe that was by itself? I looked up and down the shelf, then on the shelf behind me, then the next aisle… and the next. Ten minutes passed. Where the hell was that shoe? There I was, holding a shoe box in one arm and one shoe in the other, walking back and forth down every aisle, three or four times, trying to find one shoe. I squatted, thinking a new angle would help. Nothing. Then it hit me… that’s why they put those little elastic bands around the shoes. Normally I mumble obscenities as I waddle down the aisle in tiny steps, trying to walk in shoes that are tied together. Do they fit? Well, I’m not sure. They fit if I’m going to walk like a Geisha. Perhaps someone had tried on those 7.5 shoes and decided to walk in normal strides, snapping the band and thus set on course my shoe shopping frustrations. Stop the madness people!
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