:: Imelda Green ::

I know you'll probably blame this on the pregnancy, and my hormones and all, but my big crisis this week has been my inability to find new shoes. The sad truth is, I lack a shoe personality and as a result of that and some physical complications (this damn sacro-iliac joint that has bothered me since I started at OSU), I pretty much panic when it comes time to buy new shoes. I wander DSW aisles like someone lost in a corn maze. I spend four and a half hours looking for shoes and come home empty handed.

Once recently, I had to return a pair of defective Steve Madden shoes and they would only allow me to have store credit because the shoes started falling apart thirty-TWO days after I purchased them, and the girl said that I actually had to spend the credit that same day and I nearly had a full on breakdown. I wandered the aisles aimlessly for more than an hour, called Brian on the brink of tears to see if he could come pick out some shoes for himself instead, but he was busy, and then finally bought a pair of the same shoes I was returning. They also fell apart within a month or so, but I kept them to avoid re-starting the cycle.

So what's my deal?

In part, my shoe problem is that what I like and what I can actually wear without pinching a nerve between my spine and hip bones seldom match up. That means I can't wear anything with any sort of heel at all, more or less. So then I don't know what to like. Add to that the fact that I walk two miles round-trip to school, usually carrying lots of stuff, and need shoes that can make the trek with me, and it gets really difficult to pick a pair.

Who, in my situation (I almost absentmindedly wrote "in my shoes"), wouldn't have a shoe crisis??

Of course there's also the financial angle. I hate to spend money on shoes (I am much worse about shoes than even, say, clothes, which I gladly spend money on) and so I go to the store in search of one single pair that will serve all my shoe needs.

So with all of these "problems" plaguing me, when I look for shoes that fit the bill, I find shoes far too matronly for a girl of just 28, or far too sporty for my wardrobe, or far too ugly in general. Or, I spend all of my time searching for brown shoes, because they go with more of my clothes than do black, and I have to skip past all of the cute shoes that aren't brown, and then I get frustrated. But what good does a pair of red shoes do me when I'm only prepared to buy one pair? What do I do on days when, say, a red shoe is just not in the cards? So brown it is, and then I end up with a pair of brown shoes I usually hate, which I wear for a few months and then I realize how very much I hate them and I try to go shopping again for shoes but my patience store has run low and so I can't make it the requisite 4 1/2 hours and I return home feeling even worse and still wearing the ugly shoes.

Anyone can see I have a problem. Is there a program for this? An 800 number I can call? Can anybody help me?!

***

There is, thankfully, a happy ending to this story. After much anxiety and frustration and a day and a half of shoe shopping for something to cover my poor, pregnant feet besides $3 flip flops from Old Navy that make my feet ache by 8:30 a.m., I decided to buy several pairs of shoes, and suddenly, shoe shopping became much more fun. I got some nice brown sandals but also some fun sneaker-style mary janes, some turquiose Tevas with thin straps, and a pair of flip flops that has actual arch support and cushion. And really I didn't spend much. Not much more than the one pair I probably would have bought had I been trying to find one single wear-all pair. Now the question of the day is WHICH ONES SHOULD I WEAR FIRST?!