Writing is like being able to put life into a snow globe. It takes the things that are too big and scary and reduces them into a form that I can put away when I want and look at from a distance. It also takes all that’s good in life and captures it into something I can take out when I want and look at close up and keep forever. It makes the bad things into something I can hold…and the good things into something I can hold onto. Both help so much that I need that little souvenir of life.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Improper Poll: Shoe In


I once owned a pair of black, Reebok high-tops. I bought them after admiring them on a woman at the airport. She was one of those people who can gracefully walk the line between conservative and edgy, so she rocked those shoes. I guess I secretly want to be one of those people, but sad to say I am not. When I bought the shoes, instead of transforming into a different person, I looked more like a half-baked Betty Crocker gone bad. Like Betty’s crock cracked. Like if Betty decided one day to give up baking and run off to some remote mountainous commune where the denizens play basketball badly. I didn’t care. I loved those shoes just the same as if I’d actually looked cool in them.

I bought them after a long day of walking. When I tried them on again at home, before the illusion of coolness had worn off of them—before I had broken them in along with the news that I did not, in fact, look like a hip, rocking, bicycler babe—they felt so good I decided to forego the usual bedroom slippers and leave them in place. Just for a while. They cured my backache and left me with a spring in my step. They may well have been agony on someone else’s feet, but they made mine sing.

I once wore them on a hayride on an Indian summer’s day. The husband of the woman who sat next to me whispered, “You’re always saying you don’t know if you should wear white athletic shoes after Labor Day. You should get those.” She promptly shushed him in one of those hush-she-might-hear-you voices. I really don’t think the husband had meant it as an insult, but that shushing sure told where the wife stood on the issue of the Beloved Reeboks. I was okay with it, though. I was going to tell you what kind of Betty Crocker she was, but my inner editor made me cut it because it might have offended people who attend fundraisers where they sell handmade gingham fanny packs. Okay, I will take this one evil potshot: I bet her favorite author was Nicholas Sparks.

Take that, Bizarro World Betty! Kick my beloved Reeboks, and I will punch you in the Pillsbury doughgirls. Bettys of the world, don’t unite. Insult our shoes, and we are a brutal bunch of half-baked be-otches.

Do you have a favorite pair of shoes?

12 comments:

  1. Tammy--The whole bit about Betty Crocker (and especially the second-to-last line, about being be-othces, is laugh-out-loud funny.

    Everyone knows what my favorite shoes are. The fugliest shoes ever made. My beloved Crocs.

    Both pairs--my black and my tan ones--have been chewed on by the dog. He got only the strap of one (so I tore the strap off the other one since those straps are silly anyway) but he nibbled on the heel of the black pair. It might be noticeable to some, but inconsequential to me.

    Horrors! Recently I thought I was touching the ground with my feet-flesh, my Crocs were so worn out, but luckily, it was just my imagination. However, I DO have to keep them locked up in a safe. Otherwise, my thirty-something daughter will find them and ceremoniously burn them.

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    1. Thanks, Sioux! I've seen your daughter. Since she looks more like Miss America than a comfort food character, she wouldn't yet understand the lure of wearing dog-chewed Crocs. By the way, I once went Croc-shopping with a friend who feels the same way you do. It was quite an en experience!

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  2. Tammy, you are entirely too funny. I love this!
    I've had many favorite shoes over the years. My very favorites were thirty years ago and weren't shoes at all but high-heeled, knee-high, brown leather boots into which I could tuck my skintight jeans. I remember horrifying my grandfather by walking into their apartment wearing said boots, said jeans and a short fur jacket I had inherited from one of my grandmother's sisters.
    It seems to me a pirouette executed in between my grandfather and his (always on) TV was involved in that visit.
    "Move, I can't see the news!" he grumbled.
    "Okay, Mac," I replied, "I'm outta here after I have a little visit with Nanny." My grandmother and I giggled in the kitchen for a while before I went off to wherever I was going.
    Hardly a day went by that I didn't drop in for a few minutes, to drink a cup of tea with Nanny and annoy my grandfather away from the too-depressing news for a while. I'd always give him a kiss and tell him I loved him, and share a great big hug with Nanny. I still miss them, but I'm grateful they lived until I was almost 40.
    K

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    1. Thanks, Kay, and it sounds like Mac and Nanny were lucky to have you - boots and all (they sound cute, by the way. I meant the boots, but really your grandparents, too)!

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  3. I, too, am a Crocs connoisseur. But I'm not trying to fool anybody with BROWN and BLACK. Mine are red. And blue. Only for home, not for public flaunting. The favorite shoes I foist on humanity are run-down, white, leather New Balance.

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    1. In other words, you both literally and figuratively keep them in the closet? I dream of the day we can all shed our shame, throw open the doors and march our unfashionable shoes with pride.

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  4. I, too, love how people can wear some shoes... but mostly the kind I find fascinating will hurt my feet, so I don't purchase them. Reeboks might be a different story. And you are way too funny!

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    1. Thanks, Lynn, and I haven't purchased cruel shoes in ages, either. Maybe because I used to wear nothing but....

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  5. Bwahahahahaha!! Love.This. All of it. Especially the Nicholas Sparks dig. He steams me, and I don't mean that in a good sexy romance writer kinda way. More like an overcooked broccoli kinda way. Great post!

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    1. I appreciate that, Lisa. Except...I'm sorry, but I think you're being a little hard on overcooked broccoli.

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  6. At this point in my life, all I want is a comfortable shoe. But that brings a question. Why are all the comfy shoes so enormous?

    Pat
    Critter Alley

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  7. Cutest pair of $100 high heels. Worn once...in awful pain and suffering. Your slice of life writing sparks my brain and makes me laugh out loud. You have such a way with words. Rock those black high tops, sister.

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