There’s a pain that women go through
– and we don’t mind. In fact, we encourage this pain. We search
for it. We take pride in it. We even have special doctors to treat
it.
There’s a pain that women go through – and we don’t mind. In fact, we encourage this pain. We search for it. We take pride in it. We even have special doctors to treat it.
Nope, it’s not childbirth. It’s high-heeled shoes.
And we women have a love-hate relationship with them. One day, you’re a little girl in sandals, running up and down the playground. The next thing you know, you’re deep in your mom’s closet, falling in love with her 3-inch high heels. You wander the house in them. Usually, you fall over many, many times. But you don’t worry about that. Because soon, when you are big girl, you will walk with confidence in high heels.
Good luck with THAT.
I’m a walking, talking example of the perils of high heels. It’s hard to walk around with stilts attached to your feet, let alone do it with confidence. There are potential disasters lurking on every sidewalk. Haven’t you ever wondered about that old childhood saying, “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back?” It’s because the mother was tottering around town on 5-inch stilettos.
But it doesn’t matter. On a good day, when I haven’t eaten anything but berries and Slimfast for a week, I’m a 5’3″ chunky-monkey mama. But get me into a pair of 4-inch heels and I go from 5’3″ chunky monkey to 5’7″ pleasantly plump mama and – as a bonus – my legs look longer and leaner too. Who can fault that? I look skinnier, and I got to eat all week.
It’s definitely worth the horrors of high heels. Although, I admit there are more horrors than just a bunch of sidewalk cracks. High heels are not known for their comfort. Oh sure, some women SAY they own many pairs of perfectly comfortable high heels. I’ll be honest here. Those women are liars. I don’t care who these women are – they can be pillars of the community. They can be churchgoers. They can be the most honest moms in the parent club.
They’re still liars.
In the entire history of shoes, there has not been a comfortable high heel. It doesn’t matter how much or how little a high-heeled shoe costs – it’s going to be painful to wear. I believe this is because nobody was intended to walk around in pointy-toed, high heels. We have fat feet. But we squish them into tiny-toed stilettos and then we believe they should be comfortable? That’s just not going to happen.
Now, there are some women with a particularly uncomfortable pair of shoes who punish the shoes by relegating them to the deep, dark recesses of the closet, never to be worn again. Or at least only worn again when the woman doling out the punishment is really desperate.
But honestly, whom does that punish? The shoe? It’s just sitting around gathering dust. And besides, it’s not the shoe’s fault that it’s uncomfortable. We women never give the poor shoe a chance. Look, we go to a shoe store, and we find the perfect shoe. It sits atop its display, all glowing and proud and tall. And we can’t resist. We know that it’s absolutely the most perfect shoe and we must have it.
It will go with at least 20 outfits. It will make us look 10 pounds lighter. It will make our legs look long, lean and young again. So we take off one of our own shoes – which look old and worn out in comparison to this bright, shiny new shoe – and we try it on. Just one. Then we hop in front of the mirror like a demented flamingo, with one high heel on and the other leg tucked up so we can admire the new shoe we’re about to purchase.
t that point, the shoe has seduced us. Comfort doesn’t matter – until the first full day of wearing the shoe, of course. And that’s when a woman has to decide. Is the shoe cute enough to overcome the bleeding blisters? If it is, buy as many band-aids as you can. If it isn’t, we punish the shoe, because it’s clear the beauty of that shoe is only heel-deep. Plus, you can’t return shoes that have blood on them. It’s some sort of state law.
And that is why we women disregard our own safety – and sometimes that of others who try to catch us when we fall – for high-heels. Because it’s the only way to buy a longer, leaner, younger-looking us. And it’s worth it.
