When I was young, perhaps 4th or 5th grade, my feet were around a woman’s size 4.5 or 5.  When Mom took me school shopping that year, we realized that shoes in that size were really inexpensive!  Now, we didn’t really have a lot of extra money for clothing when I was growing up, and that didn’t bother me much as I tended to buck trends anyhow.  But that year, rather than purchasing one pair of dress shoes and one pair of sneakers, I ended up with 8 pairs of shoes!  I will never forget this memorable indulgence, and I am fairly certain that we only spent as much as we would have in previous years.  Do you remember this Mom?

That year I had my first pair of patent leather heels. (Not very high, and chunky, but they were heels!)  I remember my sneakers that year too, a periwinkle color that I was rather fond of.  But the shoes I remember most of all were a pair of red shoes with a stylized strap over the top.  They were flats.  They were the prettiest shoes I’d ever seen.  I really wanted to wear those shoes every single day.  I wore them until they wore out, and no longer fit, and then I tried to keep them even longer.  I often wore them with a denim dress with a zipper running down the front.

That dress had a story of its own, wearing that dress and those shoes, one of my classmates called me a “lesbian.”  I didn’t know what a lesbian was, and when I asked him, he told me it was a very skinny female.  *snerk*  Also this dress was used to harass me by some so called “friends” who would pull the front zipper down as I was leaving the bathroom.  It was a rough year, but at least I had red shoes!

Thus began my red shoe obsession, and as long as I can remember I’ve tried to have a pair of red shoes in my wardrobe.  I had a pair of cloth mary janes that I wore into literal pieces while I was in high school.  For the past 10 yrs I’ve had a pair of red chunk heeled boots which I absolutely love.  Unfortunately, after 10 yrs of wear, the leather is cracking and the heels are peeling.  But, I’ve had a hard time letting them go.

Last weekend, J and I went shoe shopping for his mom.  We were having trouble picking out shoes which we thought she might like.  We wanted comfort, but she is also very specific about a certain style.  We had a lovely shoe saleswoman who was very attentive and patient with us as we explained our conditions.  As we wandered through the born section, I saw a wonderful pair of red shoes!

Now, the trouble with shopping with J is that I have to be careful what I say, lest I end up with whatever it was I pointed out.  I learned within the first few months of our relationship to keep my mouth shut in order that he wouldn’t buy stuff for me that I didn’t care that much about.  But as I walked past these red shoes, headed straight for the pair we were looking at for his mom, I pointed to them and said “I think I’ll have to have a pair just like that some day!”  It was such an instantaneous reaction to a pair of red shoes that I never thought what consequence it would bring.

But, when we got home, in one of the 3 boxes of shoes were a pair in red just my size:

I think I can get rid of the boots now.