Aha. You thought I misspelled that, didn’t
you? You thought I meant Shoo Fly. But no; today I am talking about my
latest foray into the frustrating realm of BUYING SHOES.
And let me
just say that I am not one of these women with eight thousand pairs of
shoes. I like them, but I’m not an
addict. I do breeze by the shoe
department and slow down when I see a gorgeous pair of high heels. I’ll pick one up to admire it, suddenly
notice it has a red sole, and then sigh.
This means trouble. This mean
it’s a Christian Louboutin high heel and will have an insane price tag. And I
think we can both agree that a thousand dollars—or even seven hundred, as many
of his are—is an insane price for a pair of shoes, even if they are gorgeous.
So I try
to shop where nobody’s ever heard of this Louboutin guy, nor his outlandish
prices. And it works pretty well, except
for last week when I needed a new pair of tan sandals with a heel. My old ones are at least eight years old, and
though I stopped caring that they are no longer the most current style, I do
care when they begin to fall apart.
Up and
down the aisles I went, hunting for a shoe with a medium heel, two or three
inches high. Men, you have no idea what
women (or their backs) go through to stay current with the dictates of
designers. I couldn’t find anything
shorter than five inches. So, to quote
the entire state of Utah (where I spent my childhood), I thought, “What the
heck—I’ll just try on a tall one, and see how it feels.”
Mind you,
it has been at least ten years since I’ve worn Barbie pumps or any shoe with a
five-inch heel. I sat down, slipped my
foot into a camel-colored beauty, buckled the ankle strap, and stood up.
WHAMMO! My calf seized in an immediate Charlie
Horse. I tried not to yelp, collapsed
back onto my chair, and then struggled to unbuckle the shoe. It would not
unbuckle. The pain was escalating as my
calf cramped tighter and tighter.
Finally I got the shoe off (threw it, I think), and then tried to stand,
barefoot. But my foot was stuck in a
toe-point, as if encased in an invisible ballet pointe shoe.
And it was killing me. It took both hands and
the strength of Hercules to finally bend my ankle, then stand on my foot,
trying to stretch my calf out again. I
walked. It throbbed. I walked.
It throbbed.
Nobody knows where the term,
“Charlie Horse” came from, but other countries have better names for it. It’s
called the paralyzer in Portugal, the horse’s kiss or muscle hangover in
Germany, donkey bite, water buffalo, or old woman in Italy, thigh hen in
Norway, wooden leg in Finland and Israel, and rat in Guam. Clearly these are places where women are
trying to be fashionable, but have worn flat shoes too long.
I could feel the stares of
young ingenues all around me, and yes I can read minds but I refuse to print
what they were thinking. Suffice it to
say I ignored them. Their time will
come.
I continued the hunt for a sandal
with a lower heel and finally found one. Fortunately, it also had a lower
price. So victory was mine.
And you may also experience the victory of successful shopping, simply by clicking here for my latest books. No Charlie Horse required.
