Ok, I know you’re dying to hear about this.  So here goes.

First, here are the shoes.

Now the story.  When I was in Illinois Al asked me to come down to SoCal the end of the week to go to the Christmas party for his new job.  Sounds good.  However, I would only have a turnaround time of less than 24 hours after I got back to SF from Illinois.

Furthermore, it has been a long time since Al and I had been to a corporate Christmas party, or any Christmas party for that matter, and this one was semi-formal.  So I went over to Carson Pirie Scott (oh, you Illinois girls know what I’m talkin’ about…any excuse and things were on sale…) and after trying on umpteen dresses I forced myself to take the purple one off the rack that would certainly make me cry once I put it on.  To my surprise it looked great!  Mission accomplished.

Fast forward to SoCal.  I arrived Thursday night with the word put out to my friend Deanne that I needed to get shoes the next day and possibly some type of costume jewelry.  Please observe a moment of silence: Deanne has four daughters.  This was good news for me, or so I thought.  Friday I basically tagged along as Deanne and her daughter Caitlin took me to “just the place” to find shoes.  Off Broadway shoes.  OMG, Orange County accent and all.  HUGE shoe store with every kind of shoe you can imagine.

I was willing to get something with a little heel, and was just about to settle on a sensible but glitzy pump when Caitlin (22) walked up with the shoes you see here.   They matched the purple dress perfectly.  I tried them on.

NO WAY.

I took them off.  But then…like the siren’s song….a song I am immune to as the mother of sons…I was drawn back to them.  I could just sit a lot at the party, right?  They went home with me.

I got dressed for the party at Deanne’s and Al was going to pick me up after work.  I put the shoes on and suddenly after 57 years or so of walking, I could not figure out how to walk in these stilts.  I did a few practice runs in the hallway.  It was so weird.  In those shoes you simply cannot execute a normal heel/toe gait (as we call it in the PT business).  I finally got the hang of it but felt sure I might end the evening resting in the ER with my ankle wrapped in ice waiting for x-rays.

Of course that didn’t happen.  I got used to them.  I even danced in them – dancing was actually much easier than just standing because you are constantly taking the weight off each foot – so there wasn’t enough time for the pain, pain, pain.

And here’s a little secret I found out.  These young gals walking around in these shoes? Guess what? They are in pain, too!  I had no idea, because shoes with these heels have never been popular since I was old enough to wear or care about such things.  You see them everywhere now, of course, and like me I’m sure you wonder how they can wear them?!?!?!?!?!?

My son Jeff tells me “it’s really ridiculous – they put them on and then after about ten minutes when they are sure everyone has seen them, they come off and never go back on for the rest of the night.”   At the party we had to have a little more decorum than that, but I was gratified when I absolutely couldn’t take it anymore and walked towards the hotel elevator with them swinging in my hand – and I ran into another grown woman doing the same thing.

So there’s my story.  I survived and actually I expected stress fractures of my metatarsals the next morning but that didn’t happen.  I’m not going to be buying any four inch heels again soon, but it makes me think maybe I can go a little higher than my standard flats, now that I know the rules – 1)  it hurts to be beautiful my Mom always used to say, and 2) they are not painful because I’m 57 years old, they are painful because they require you to stand on your foot bones on end as opposed to flat on the floor and 3) you can take them off whenever you want.

Now about my purple sparkly nail polish, courtesy of Deanne’s other daughter Sarah.  It actually looks much better than I thought it would and so I’m game to try other colors besides Whore Red, Coquettte Coral and Party Pink which have been my standards…

And the purple tattoo? Well, that happened after a few drinks…