[A tale of pain and despair and other funny things]

I really meant to post this earlier today, and then I read the Gas Guy’s post about whining, and felt like maybe I should cool it with the (mostly self-deprecating) whiney stuff, because it truly is unattractive at best. But then I figured, what the hell, it’s not so much whining that I’m doing here, but sharing stories of my complete ineptitude for performing the simple tasks in life. Now that’s entertainment! I’m practically your court jester.

So I try to make sure that any whining I do is done with a heaping helping of self-consciousness, as is the way in this post-modern world of ours. I wouldn’t want you to think that I’m not fully aware of my overwhelming lameness. Because that would be, like, lame times two. Or something. Something really lame. Anyway, I don’t want to sound bitchy and shrill and I hope my feeble attempts at humor help dull the edge of any tendency I might have to be annoying. Because, trust me, there are times when I get sick of me too. So why do I keep letting you people read my diary? I have no idea. I guess I just thought it might be fun for all of us to find out where this story is going together.

So here I am, up late installing some magnificent software thanks to my kind and generous friend whose reputation would suffer if it ever got out that he did random nice things like this, so I won’t mention his name. And just in the NICK of time, I remembered I had this post stashed away, and that it might get stale if I didn’t go ahead and put it out there. So here it is, with more ado than it deserves. Ahem.

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My feet are total lightweights. They’re killing me, and I’m just sitting here. Allow me to explain.
 
When I work true day shifts, like today, I sometimes get the urge to dress like a real professional — you know, khakis, a nice blouse, dress shoes, the whole bit. During the past few years, I have scoffed at the thought of dressing up for anything, but during a five-month stint as a Dillard’s lackey bound to a dressy dress code, my closet’s contents morphed and changed due to the demands of my employers. Where there used to be nothing but ratty jeans and fading grunge music T-shirts, there are now a dozen or so respectable-looking trousers and blouses  … beside a still-growing collection of ratty jeans and grunge music T-shirts. Believe it or not, I actually enjoy wearing nice-looking dress clothes because it acts as a professional costume. I dress up, therefore I am.
 
But there’s always one piece of the outfit puzzle that I can’t seem to get right.
 
The shoes, people. The godforsaken women’s dress shoes.
 
At Dillard’s, because I was on my feet for eight to ten hours a day, it made sense to wear some plain black flat mules. They were ugly, but they were made for comfort, and I wasn’t about to try to sell people stuff while stifling screams of blister-popping agony. But now that I have an office job, I’m not on my feet all that much and I feel that I should be able to wear cuter shoes that don’t make my feet look like boat trailers (even if the feet themselves are sort of inclined to look that way anyway).
 
So today I broke out the cute ballet slipper-style shoes I got on sale a month or two ago. I slipped them on the ol’ dogs, to see how they felt. I could tell instantly that there was going to be some discomfort on the back of my heels where the shoe rubs the skin. But how much discomfort could there be? I asked the eyebagged floozy in the mirror. You only walk from your apartment to your car, your car to your desk, and then your desk to the bathroom or the water fountain, and then back to your car again. It won’t be that bad.
 
Jesus Jones, it was that bad. All day I limped like I’d been shot in the shins. I had to take care not to let anyone see the raw orange mess at the back of each of my heels. It was almost like my feet were revolting against trying to look cute. They wanteed their flip-flops back, I guess. But, damn it, it’s not like I was wearing ridiculous stiletto heels or anything; I think such things are tantamount to actual torture. I’ve technically been a woman for five or six years now. Is wearing modest dress shoes something I should have already conquered? Is this yet another callus I should have already built up in anticipation of a lifetime of feminine pain?
 
I don’t buy it. I’ll wear tacky, ugly, orthopedic shoes for the rest of my life if it means not wincing in pain at every step. Granted, I’ll never land me a man with a foot fetish, but there’s no downside to that.