Pick a Car, Any Car

           I was sitting in traffic the other day, and thought about how each driver had chosen whatever they’re driving, probably came proudly home with it, maybe even called their friends to say they just bought a Nissan/Mustang/Range Rover/Audi/Chevy--  whatever.

          They liked the color, the seats, the options. And now here we are, expressing our preferences in a giant sea of choice.  It’s the same with shoes, haircuts, and food we order off a menu. I’ve always liked this freedom to choose and would dread living in a world where we were told THIS is your car

          And THESE are your shoes

          And THIS is what you have to eat.

          I know there are people in other countries without such freedoms, and I wish I could bring them here, take them to the salad dressing aisle at the grocery store, and say, “Pick whichever one you want.” Then do it with shoes, cars, and haircuts.

          Just saying. Freedom is pretty cool.

          Check out my free life hacks at my Youtube Mom channel. You can pick whichever one you’d like to watch.

If Shoes Could Speak

         I’ve been thinking, lately, about drug dealers. Not all of them, but the specific sub-set of dealers who throw tennis shoes over power lines to announce that this is the place where cops can find them. I mean this is the place to buy drugs.

          We’ve all known about this “secret” communication for decades, right?  Yet you still see relatively new sneakers tossed high over electric lines for all the world to see.

          And it makes me wonder several things. First, how can anyone afford to hurl a pair of sneakers up over the lines, losing them forever? Have you priced sneakers lately?

          Second, how long does it take before the shoes catch on the line? I can picture drug dealers standing in the middle of the street—in the night, I assume—tossing and tossing and tossing until the shoe laces finally catch the line. It looks very hard to do, much harder than making a basketball shot from the foul line. I’m wondering if this might eventually become an Olympic event.

          And how long do laces last in the sun and rain?  They’re biodegradable, remember. If thick lawn furniture breaks apart after one summer, how long can a shoelace last?  What if they fall on your windshield and cause a wreck? 

          Maybe drug dealers are not Phi Beta Kappa types, after all. Maybe, if they were smarter, they would have gone into baseball pitching or shot put. Then, at least, they could have kept their shoes.

If you can afford to toss your tennis shoes away, you could probably purchase ALL of my books right here!

Putting Your Best Foot into Debt

          We all enjoy high quality, right?  And every one of us has felt the exasperation of buying a poorly made product that falls apart within a year of its use, right?  From garden tools to furniture to clothing, quality craftsmanship is getting harder and harder to find. And when you do find it, the price tag makes you rock back on your heels.  Let us just hope they are not John Lobb heels.

          Allow me to explain.  I once went to France with our second son, Brandon, who had served a two-year LDS church mission there.  This was fabulous in many ways, not least of which because he is ultra fluent, and the locals all assumed he was French.  But he has also had extravagant taste from the time he was a little boy and wanted to give rubies to a classmate for her birthday.  In first grade.

          So it was no surprise that he stopped dead in his tracks as we were walking along in a pricey district of Paris, the minute he spotted a John Lobb shoe store.  What, you may wonder, is a John Lobb shoe?

          Well, for the rest of us—the ones who actually live on planet Earth, not Planet Rubies for Birthdays or Planet Price is No Object, they are shoes that cost more than your first car.  And your second car.  Put together. 

          Clearly designed for men who have money to burn, they truly are amazing, high-quality, hand-crafted shoes.

          But they cost nearly $2,000.00.  And that’s before tax and shipping. Oh sure, some of them are closer to $1,000, but then a pair of crocodile Lopez Precious Leather ones will ding you $10,690.00.

          I'm happy to wait while the exclamation marks in your brain settle down. Anyway, I knew there was no way I could surprise him with a pair for Christmas, but I thought surely they had a shoe shine kit or something that he might like.  So I waited until I got home and I called one of their stores.

          The fellow on the phone happily reported that they don’t sell the wooden box you and I are picturing, only a leather travel shoe care case.  Even better, I thought—a travel one has to be less expensive than a home one.

          “How much is that?” I asked. 

          “Nine hundred dollars.”

          “Excuse me?”

          “Nine hundred dollars.  But the creams and brushes are sold separately.”

          So not only is it almost a thousand bucks, but it’s empty?  Was he kidding?  

          He was not.  “Nine hundred dollars,” he happily repeated.

          “Listen to yourself,” I said.  “You are telling me a shoe shine kit costs NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS U.S.”

          He was unfazed.  “Yes ma’am.”

          Evidently this is not shocking news to their customers (so… Prince Charles and who else?), but it left me absolutely dumbfounded.  And a Medium Metal Shoe Horn will set you back $160.00.  Seriously.  For a shoe horn.

Needless to say, I bought a little shoe-care kit from the Dollar Store, and plan to stuff it into Brandon’s Christmas stocking.  Maybe include some ruby cuff links.

Check out the prices of my books HERE.  You will be flabbergasted at what a bargain they are, especially when you consider how many dozens you can buy, all for the price of a shoe shine kit! And Mother's Day is coming up... just saying.

Shoe Fly

          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.

Putting the Wrong Foot Forward

Have you ever had a really stupid idea?  Oh, I know you think you have.  But, my friends, you have no idea the depths of stupidity that I have forged ahead of you. You would have to concoct stupid ideas all day and all night to catch up with just this one that I’m going to share with you.

The idea was to sell painted shoes.  It all started with my three friends in Southern California (so it’s really their fault) when we got together for a girls’ vacation.  We always bring each other party favors and this time I thought I’d paint canvas shoes to depict their hobbies and interests.  Karen has a glorious beach house in Balboa, so hers were nautical.  Cynthia is a formidable game player, thus hers were game-themed.  And Christy is the glamorous doll who I decided could use some leopard-print shoes.  I love bird nests and eggs, so I made myself a pair of those.

But this idea doesn’t just have one problem.  It has six.  First, I’m not an artist.  I forgot to consider this little factoid when I covered my breakfast bar with newspapers, paint, brushes, and canvas shoes.  You would think the sudden realization of this limitation would slow me down, but no.  I just thought the idea was so darling I had to see it through.  And, sure enough, my friends loved their gifts.  So much so, that they said the fatal words, “Oh, you should SELL these!”

And I actually believed them.  I came home and launched a business.  I paid the county for my registered name, got a re-sale number, placed the requisite ad, printed up business cards, joined Etsy and Artfire, posted a website, and signed up as a vendor in craft fairs.  This entire debacle was already costing me a thousand bucks, the Second Problem.

My husband (another culprit—would I have done this without his irresistible name idea?) thought I should call my new business “Oh Shoesanna” at which point I squealed, certain it couldn’t fail.  I decided I should buy the shoes wholesale, so I ordered a box of shoes made in China, the soles of which reeked beyond any rubbery shoe you have ever smelled, and which had to be returned at once.  That was the third problem: I was now forced to purchase shoes retail and sell them at craft fairs where folks expect prices to be below retail.

Naturally, you need to haul quite an inventory to craft fairs.  I was painting like the madwoman I am, and finally had 40 to 60 pairs of these in all kinds of themes. Problem Four: Each pair required two to three hours of work, for which one cannot possibly be adequately compensated.

 Once there, invariably a woman would say, “Oh, I love the Paris one, but you only have a 7 and a 9, and I wear an 8” and I realized The Fifth Problem, which is that I needed every theme in every size.  I also started taking special orders (“I’m in 4-H and want a lamb on mine”) which then required shipping as well.

But wait—as they say in frying pan infomercials—there’s more.  Problem Six is the worst one of all:  I am suddenly being mistaken for a Foot Therapist and am hearing about everyone’s warts, bunions, and fallen arches.  I am now spending entire afternoons trying not to grimace, yet show appropriate compassion.  Incidentally, what is the appropriate level of compassion, here?  I just know at any moment someone will come by, pat me on the shoulder and say, “Oh, you poor thing—you thought this could work, didn’t you?”

I finally dropped my prices from $45 to $22 to $10 and still couldn’t unload them all.  The shoes cost more than that to purchase unpainted!  Why didn’t I just bake up some cookies and give them away as a do-gooder, if the point was to throw money into the wind?  Four people missed the pun entirely and asked me if my name was Suzanna. 

Today I still have about a dozen of these shoes in a box in the garage.  I haven’t done it yet, but I should write “Electronics” on there and hope some burglar steals them.  Then he can blog about what a stupid idea it was to be a burglar.