Last weekend, I decided it was time to do a little shoe shopping. Since I took this job at the bookstore, my shoe options have been woefully insufficient for my daily wardrobe challenges. Wearing heels is out of the question, as I'm tripping my way through something in the vicinity of 15,000 steps per day. Fifteen thousand steps in stiletto heels is roughly equivalent to booking yourself a seat on an SST ride to plantar fasciitis city. For the most part, I've been wearing sneakers five days a week for the past two months. Chic, stylish sneakers, to be sure. But sneakers, nonetheless. Many of my clothes? Do not work with sneakers.
I've gotten reasonably skilled at shopping alone. I'm not quite prepared to say that I don't need an enabler, but in dire situations I'm capable of flying solo. Whenever my resolve begins to waver, I close my eyes and listen to Emily's voice telling me how the shoes want to come home with me, nay, need to come home with me. Because it is dark at night in the shoe store, and they are neglected and lonely. If I listen hard enough, I can sometimes even hear them calling my name and begging me to love them. This happened twice last weekend, and who am I to deny shoes the warm, nurturing homes they so desperately need?
Never one to let a minor concern such as impecuniosity interfere with sartorial splendor, I bought these Frye boots:

And these Cole Haan flats:

All week long, my mom has been twisting heavily on the faucet of guilt. Don't I feel remorse for having dropped almost the entirety of a paycheck on footwear? Don't I think that money could be better spent elsewhere? Shouldn't I, at the very least, be putting on my new shoes on Sunday morning to come to church with her? And all week long, I've been blithely immune to her machinations, sublimely clomping (boots) or twirling (flats) my way through my days. My clothes have been happier, too, as they're now secure in the knowledge that many of them will soon be liberated from their closet prison, now that I have the appropriate comfortable footwear selections to serve as companion pieces.
So: gorgeous shoes, happy feet, happy clothes, happy Laris, and no remorse. No remorse, that is, until I realized that I do need to pinch the pennies for awhile, and therefore can't afford to squander my spare change on this. Damn. Foiled again, by the Venus Flytrap!