Walk a mile in my shoes

Steve Martin wrote about the Cruel Shoes, shoes so twisted they tortured the wearer's feet into improbable angles and cut them with razors.

I've never had Cruel Shoes, but I have owned the Dangerous Shoes--black leather, with very high rubber wedge heels and delicate ankle straps, simultaneously girlish and intimidating. I hold those shoes responsible for guiding me into obliquely compromising situations that were impossible to step back out of. (I miss those shoes.)

Another pair of shoes I own--high, red-and-orange damask espadrilles with red grosgrain ties--caused a problem with my boss. "They're just so not YOU," he said several times, rattled and shaking his head as if I'd come to the office in Ace Frehley facepaint. "I think it's the ribbons," he said. "The whole thing is just so IMPROBABLE." Hence, the Improbable Shoes. I let his reaction shave down my enthusiasm for the Improbable Shoes, because I am shallow and dependent on external approval, as you will see when I describe the Heinous Boots.

Four separate male friends shuddered dramatically when faced with my Heinous Boots, and no matter what I said, their opinion was unchanged. The boots in question were OK, perhaps heinous: ankle-high white microfiber, very high, narrow wedge heels, pointy toes. I loved them. And yet, the boots had to go, as did my high-heeled magenta snakeskin biker boots. The Keelhauler, early in our relationship, refused to accompany me outside when he saw them, and insisted that I change. "They're just wrong," he said, shaking his head. And I know he was right, but that's what I liked about them. OK, so the Wrong Boots are now history, as are the Foot Cages, the Therapist Shoes, the Platforms of Battle and several other notable examples of lapses in my judgment.

You'd think I'd know better, but recently, suffering from low blood sugar and bright, flashing colors in the ad, I bought a pair of black flats online. There's nowhere in this town to buy decent shoes, a point I make loudly and often, and so in desperation, I found a pair I thought I could tolerate, sent off my credit card number, and instantly forgot what they looked like. They arrived today, and I think they might have to be named the Shoes of Idiocy. I was surprised to see how truly ugly they are. I don't want to put up a picture of them, because their hideousness will be immediately evident, but I'll try to describe them. The overall feel is Track-n-Field Ballerina. Picture two large licorice jelly beans lying on their backs. Each jelly bean should be one half-inch shorter than your actual foot. Now, hollow out an oval, flat-bottomed hole in each bean, into which you could insert your foot. Then, slice off the bottom of each bean and glue on giant, jagged rubber. Add some more rubber around the toe in a falsely sneaker-y fashion, then highlight the top with giant white zig-zag stitching for maximum age-inappropriateness. Add two tiny silver screens for ventilation, and you're good!

Now, put 'em on and march around, because you're not going to be able to walk with your normal stride in the bean shoes. Not only are they completely inflexible, they're too short, and simultaneously too wide at the tops. These shoes defy the laws of physics by being simultaneously too large AND too small. And the back curves in just a hair, to create large blisters on each heel. And I can't return them because the first thing I did was to put them on and march around in the parking lot, thereby violating the "please try these on a carpeted surface" rule of returnage. I hate them, they're hideous, they're unflattering, and defy every convention of fashion.

But they were so cheap!

P. S.

OK. Now, you're not going to get the full hideousness of the Combat Ballerina style from this picture, but TRUST ME, when these shoes are on your foot, you want to immediately cry from despair. The opening kind of stands up around my foot like a Daniel Green bedroom slipper, ill-designed and cheaply manufactured. It now occurs to me that the "toes this way" directions printed in the sole might not be joking. You could almost wear these shoes either way. OK, here they are:

Sorry.



Star of the day. . .Jackie, Dressed in Cobras
posted @ 2:24 p.m. on September 29, 2005 before | after

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She lay awake all night,

zzzzzzzzzzz......