THE PRICE OF BEAUTY

It's just another sign that my fun-filled life as I know it is changing ... and not for the good.

You see, I've always had kind of a thing for shoes - high-heeled sexy numbers that will take any proper, corporate-looking outfit and give it some ZING, some FLARE, some POSH. The higher, the better, in my opinion, since I am short and like to think I can disguise my munchkin-stature, as well as thin out my pudgy frame, by wobbling around on 3 1/2-inch stilettos. This way, according to my fragile and misguided psyche, people won't know I am short and fat. They will instead just think I have no balance and am drunk since I can't walk in a straight line.

Besides, when I get home, these fun high-heeled numbers can double as come-fuck-me pumps. So you see, pretty shoes are not just good for the ego, the confidence, and the wardrobe, they can also jazz up your sex life.

Pretty shoes are also the best way to lift depression in any woman. If you go shopping for clothes, you run the risk of looking fat in them, or having to buy a size bigger. Shoes never make you feel fat. Having to get those pink pumps in a bigger size does not make you curl up in a fetal position as you sob and swear off Ben and Jerry's for good. Unlike mini-skirts or jeans, shoes are always your friend and go with you through all stages of life -- through the 20 pounds you lost last year on Southbeach, to the 40 pounds you gained this year when you decided that you'd only eat vegetables that are deep fried.

But in the last year or so, my shoes - my dear friends - have started to let me down. It's not so easy to walk in them anymore. They rub, they pinch, and they make my arches and calves ache. Before, they didn't seem to bother me. But I suppose 20 years of cramming my toes into a point and making my foot stand at a 90 degree angle to the floor is staring to take a toll on my poor footsies.

Yet I press on. Today, for example, I have had to tape my pinky toe and apply cream to the top of my foot where the shoe rubs to keep from bleeding. I make an effort not to wince as I walk to the copy machine, and try to combine trips so as not to have to retrace any steps, lest those be the last steps I can take. I'm afraid that when I go to see my boss for an important meeting today, that I may accidentally cry out as I walk across his office. But damnit, I will look good! Cause these shoes are HOT! And if the pinky toe continues to feel like it is being crushed and causing those pesky jolts of pain to shoot up my leg, there's always the option of amputating. What do you need a pinky toe for anyway?

I went to a shoe store with a friend recently - a friend who is also starting to feel the effects of wearing cute, high-heeled shoes. She picked up a couple pairs of flats to show me - "This is what we should start wearing," she told me.

I looked at them - those ugly, flat, shapeless and sexless shoes. I just couldn't do it. I know people wear them ... but outside of covering up their foot and making it comfortable to walk in, what was the purpose?

But I'm afraid if I don't start wearing those ugly, sensible shoes, I will be so crippled up I'll have to even resort to something worse - like orthopedic shoes. Those shoes would make a guy who just got out of prison lose his erection.

Maybe I just need to find a happy medium - like switching from 3 1/2 inch heels to 2 1/2 inches. I can just slowly trade my way down over the next few years until I'm too old to care. Of course by then I may not have any toes left, and will have to use a walker. But I'll look good right up until then! And if I'm ever caught by terrorists and tortured, they won't be able to get a thing out of me, since I'm used to living in extreme pain already.

In the meantime, I'm going to see if I can get one of my coworkers to help me hobble to my car today after work. If beauty is pain, I just may be the most beautiful woman in the world right now - after all, bloody and scarred feet are in, right?

Comments

[Daisy]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

I just spit up a bit of my diet coke reading this. You really should provide some sort of bib to your readers.

Everything you said was true. Painful, but true. If THEY can put men on the moon and engineer bridges that can withstand earthquakes, why can't THEY make a comfortable, sexy, high heeled shoe? I personally think it is a conspiracy against women and drag queens. Until THEY get it together, we really only have two options...bloody stumps or amputated toes.