The Summer of Sensible Shoes...

Ah, summer, the season when a woman's thoughts of summer sun and romance make a beeline to fear and dread, or so I've been lead to believe by popular media for years. What's to fear? Oh, yes, swimsuit season, the realization that most women have when they see just how awful they look after a year of wool sweaters and bulky overcoats. And, you know what? Most of them don't look that awful, they just don't look like (insert the current 'sexiest woman alive'). I laugh in the face of swimsuit season, having decided that I'm never going to look like the sexiest woman alive, except to my husband, and I'm okay with that. I have far bigger worries: The search for cute and comfortable shoes.

Does this mean that I'm getting old? No, I've been this way for a very long time, perhaps for my entire life. I can remember vividly a pair of "oxfords" that my mother bought me for my fifth birthday: they were black velvet with red leather trim. I thought they were adorable, but, they were so uncomfortable that I hated to wear them. I tried to explain to her that the shoes were not right, but, no words could change my circumstance: I would wear the shoes until either I out-grew them, or they wore out.

If I could have figured out a way to make my feet grow faster, then I wouldn't have had to resort to my only other option...

One day after returning home from an outing, I decided that I had had enough of the terrible velvet shoes, that no amount of punishment could be worse than wearing the uncomfortable shoes for even one more minute. I crawled under the kitchen table, and pulled down one side of the tablecloth, in an attempt to hide myself from my ever-present-all-seeing-all-knowing-eyes-in-the-back-of-her-head mother, and went to work on the shoes.

Sadly, the shoes were not only uncomfortable, but seemingly they had been sewn together in such a way that my tiny fingers with neatly clipped nails were no match for the tenacity of the thread. It was a battle of wills, and the shoes were winning.

And then my mother caught me.

She was not pleased. That's a bit of an understatement. She was really angry.

It was my second battle of wills in only a few short minutes, and now I was double-teamed.

But, that was only one battle. Battles can be won or lost; it's the outcome of the war that establishes the victor, and I was determined to win the war of the velvet shoes.

I decided that rather than 'wear out' the shoes in one stroke, I would need to resort to a slow and steady progression, like soldiers painstakingly gaining ground, I would, seam by seam, bring about a full surrender of the shoes, my only weapons were my determination and a butter knife, stolen from the the kitchen drawer.

It seemed to take forever, but, slowly, the threads began to break, they began to wear down, and out. I had conquered the velvet shoes, at last. The funny thing about the velvet shoes though, was that after a while, they weren't uncomfortable, but, that was no longer the issue: I wanted my shoes, my way. I had been tested, and my resolve was stronger than the stitching on those shoes.

I don't even remember which shoes came after. You would think that I would, after having worked so hard for them. I guess that they were comfortable, though unmemorable.

I still have issues with shoes. For the last few weeks, I've been looking for cute and comfortable shoes for summer. I need shoes that I can walk in, but, they have to look good, too. That's a challenge for me, because sometimes an aesthetically pleasing shoe, isn't comfortable, and a comfortable shoe is just downright ugly. So, I've been shoe shopping. I have to try on every pair of sandals in the shop, until I find a pair that I can live with, at least for the summer.

My last salesperson was a charming young woman with a thick French accent. With a smile, she brought me pair after pair of sandals to try, carefully checking back on me. As I stood staring at my feet in a pair of tan sandals, she approached, and asked how that pair, the seventh pair, was fitting. I told her my concerns, that they were too tight across the top of my foot.

"They're leather," she said sweetly, "they'll give up."

I know that she couldn't possibly know why that made me laugh, but, I told her that I wasn't sure that the shoes would surrender to me, and asked for a different pair. Only shockingly bright white in my size. My feet looked like beacons. No.

A cute, khaki colored, pair with only one buckle. I liked them. I walked in front of a tall mirror and focused on my feet. Another woman, who was also trying on shoes, and having similar results, judging by the boxes of rejects on the floor nearby, looked down at my feet and said, "Those are cute."

I agreed with her, but, pointed out that there were about two extra inches of shoe beyond the tips of my toes; it looked like I had strapped surfboards to my soles. "She's got the same problem," her daughter told me, as she pointed to her mother's short-toed feet, which inspired a conversation about shoes and feet.

Ready to call it a night, I chose a pair of Born sandals, and figured that if they fit and were comfortable, I'd just get them. Last week, I had purchased a pair of cute Dansko shoes, so, I wasn't desperate, I just wanted a pair of sandals. Was that too much to ask?

As it turned out, the Born sandals fit nicely, though they will not be on any hot shoe list, I'm certain. I bought them, and I've been wearing them now for some time, and they seem to be serving their purpose.

I am glad that I met the other woman who has a similar shoe issue; it makes me feel as though I'm not entirely alone in stiletto wonderland, where many things look lovely, but, just don't fit, or make sense. I'm not the only woman with chubby feet and stubby toes, in a world of svelte, sleek, "Sex in the City," type feet.

Do women really enjoy wearing those pointy torture chambers? Dumb question. Do men like to see women wearing those pointy torture chambers? Dumb question.

Will those torture chambers ever give up? Yes, but, only if you have a butter knife and a lot of determination.