Shoe Shopping Sucks and The Key Thief

If you are like me, and you have freak feet that require size 11 Narrow shoes, you have maybe 6 pairs of shoes to your name. My exciting summer choices were 1. Tennis shoes that are extremely dirty and starting to fall apart slightly, and 2. Black sandals that hurt my feet for some reason even though they are the right size. Do you see a dilemma here? Sometime in May, before summer began, I went to one of the TWO stores that actually carry my stupid size. Of course, they didn't have my size in the colors I wanted, so I ordered two different pairs. They came in the mail a couple weeks later, and I thought, "I better wear these around the house first, to make sure they are comfortable". The problem with that plan was...I'm never home! If I'm not out working, my kid is yelling about "Shoes?! Meow?! Un?!" By the way, the toddler translation for that is, "Put my shoes on, so we can go see the cat, and then go somewhere in the car. We cannot stay in this house, ever. This house is boring!" No wonder laundry never gets done.

This week, when I finally picked a day, and wore the two pairs of sandals around the house, I quickly decided that "Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! These hurt!" Back to the store. Today I went to the second of the TWO stores (TWO being in capitals so that I get the optimum amount of sympathy for my pitiful shoe dilemma. I know, I know. Cry me a river, and I'll swim right on out of here.)

I walked in, went straight to a salesperson and stated, "I need sandals, size 11 Narrow. Can you help me?" After being in the shoe room a long time looking for the freak section, she emerged with FOUR pairs. Yep, in the whole big store, they only had FOUR choices in my size. This is in one of the TWO stores that actually carry my stupid size! The first two were totally uncomfortable, the third made my feet look like duck feet, and the fourth were really comfortable. I asked how much the fourth pair was - $125! "Crap! Let's keep looking! How about tennis shoes?" In the whole big store, she had TWO choices in my stupid size. Both looked ridiculous. The saleswoman started getting exasperated. That made me mad. I said, "If you think this is frustrating for you, think how I must feel!", and she gave me some BS about how she was just feeling bad that she couldn't find anything for me. Yep, I'm sure it had nothing to do with her commission. Not at all. I ended up buying the $125 comfortable sandals that look like men's sandals. But, really, with size 11 Narrow feet, people aren't really going to be admiring my beautiful feet anyway, so who cares? Maybe if I paint my toenails a pretty shade of pink my feet will look pretty and petite. SNORT!! Who am I kidding? My big toe is the size of a small child. Shoe Shopping Sucks.

While I was enduring my painful ordeal, my parents were watching Dylan. They took him to the park, and let him throw rocks in the stream, touch a frog!, and get really, really dirty. (Aren't they fun!) When they brought him home, they gave him a bath, then put him in fresh clothes, and put him down for a nap. When I got home, my mom was searching everywhere for her car keys. She was worried that she lost them at the park. When Dylan woke up, we looked in his room - no keys. So, they set off for the park to search. They returned a while later because they forgot to give me the stroller back. My mom said, "I think I remember having them in Dylan's room. Could you look under the dresser?" I ran up and looked under the dresser, then grabbed the hamper to push it over and look under it. The hamper made a noise, that didn't sound like clothing, so I turned it upside down and dumped the clothes out, and what do you know? The keys were in the hamper. Did my mom put her keys in the hamper? Uh, no, that would be the toddler thief, intent on making us all lose our bloomin' minds. The other day, I searched for an hour for one of my shoes, before finally realizing that Dylan put in in the recyclable bin. I was convinced I was losing my mind. Well, the verdict is still out on that, but I did find my shoe. I do NOT want to go back to the shoe store.