It's All About Shoes

Yesterday I had to go do something I detest - buying shoes. I can't remember the last non-athletic shoes I've bought nor how long ago it was. It goes way back to when I was in middle school and my feet had a growth spurt before the rest of my body. My mother took me to Stride Rite or someplace like that and when we told the salesman what size I needed, he got this shocked look on his face and stammered back the size to be certain with of course, the obligatory glance at my feet to see if it could possibly be true. That did it for me, I refused to buy shoes from that day forward. My mother knows this so for my birthday and Christmas, I'm always provided with a couple of pairs of shoes. Unfortunately, I needed specific shoes to go with my dress for the girls' graduation next week so I was forced to go shopping for shoes.

So that the process wouldn't be any more torturous than need be, I enlisted a babysitter to play with I. for a couple of hours because I wouldn't wish I. on anybody's shopping trip. No matter how short, any shopping trip is too long. I went to Macy's which as luck would have it, was having a good sale and there were so many people there, I was able to just have the salesperson hand me the boxes and put the shoes on myself in peace. I was thinking to myself, "This isn't so bad." But then I had to push it and I decided I should head to the "shoe mecca" aka Nordstrom's just to make sure there wasn't a better shoe out there. Greediness, it always gets you in trouble.

Off I trek down the mall to Nordstrom's still merrily tripping along and walk into the shoe department. I was still in my "search and destroy" zone, the one in which you are completely focused on what you are searching for and your eyes are panning the tables quickly and efficiently. That's the good part. The bad part of that is that I didn't realize immediately that there are about 5 salespeople to every customer and they are looking at me like I'm looking at the shoes: TARGET, TARGET, TARGET.

Just as I become aware that I'm like a rabbit in the forest, there is a salesman right in front of me, asking if he can help me find what I'm obviously looking for. Now I'm feeling cornered but allow him to show me a couple of shoes, order my size, and sit down to wait. It begins to dawn on me that he's going to actually wait on me probably meaning he's going to see my feet (did I mention he's very cute? not helping!) and oh my gosh, I didn't touch up my toenails and my snaggle tooth toe nail, thanks to fungus amongous, is going to be visible especially because I'm trying on sandals! And what is up with all male salespeople in the women's shoe department?! I hate to think what was going on in the bra department in this place. All this information is running through my brain at 100 m.p.h. Now, I start trying to put together some strategies to minimize my embarrassment when he shows up with the boxes.

The good part was that he handed me the shoe instead of like the olden days (you can see I wasn't lying about how long it's been since I've been shoe shopping), where they would actually put the shoe on your foot. I grab that shoe, cram it on my foot, and then quickly hobble over to a mirror so he can't see my freak toes. Repeat process once more, put one pair on hold just in case and I run out of there like a bat out of hell.

This is why I love Zappos.com and Shoebuy.com. You can choose shoes in the privacy of your own home with your freak toes safely hidden in your socks and have them show up on your doorstep. With free shipping both ways, you just can't beat it. I scoured those websites for these shoes the last month and just couldn't find anything leading me to have to go through this funny, but unnecessarily stressful, process. I do know one thing: it's going to be a REALLY long time before I go shoe shopping in person again. There's just some things in life that should be avoided as long as possible and for me, this is definitely one of them.