About two years ago I stopped wearing cute shoes. I gave away my boots, my slip-ons, even my silver and gold sparkly ballet flats. I loved those shoes. They literally looked good with everything.
My right foot hurt too much to wear them. After several expensive trial and error pairs of tennis shoes, I settled on some pink and white Altras. Comfort trumped color. But, what to wear to church? Every Sabbath step was agony and set my foot off for days. It was time to get serious. It was time to accept that my body thought it was dead, or nearly so.
I started wearing Grandma Shoes. These are serious enough that they do in fact require capitalization.
Grandma shoes look ridiculous with fancy dresses. They look ridiculous with most dresses.
I have three pairs of these pricey shoes. And they are super-dee-dooper-dee comfy.
The sandals are actually pretty cute. And the others, well, they are Grandma Shoes.
I went into the SAS store on Saturday, planning to buy a pair of these:
The owner told me he wouldn't sell them to me. He said he hated them. They happened to be on clearance, but I saw them online and went in specifically to get these shoes.
"They'll make your feet hurt. They haven't figured out how to make them right yet."
I asked about these ones, and he let me try them on to see for myself.
He was right. They slipped off my heels and pinched the sides of my feet. He suggested these instead:
I tried them on and found the right size and fit. They are less bulky than the clunky black ones I have, but I still wasn't sure if they were going to fit the bill for the fancy dress up event I have later this week. I grimaced.
He understood. He asked me how far away I lived. "15 minutes" I replied.
"Take them home" he said. "No paperwork. Just take them and see how they look with your dress. Bring them back when you can."
He could have made me buy them to take them home and see. I still would have had to come back to return them. He didn't even ask me my name. He just handed me the box and let me walk out of the store with $160 shoes.
Today, I brought them back. I might purchase them in the Winter time, but today I got a different pair - the same Grandma Shoes I have in beige and black, in a cool shimmery grey. Yep, I'm embracing my Grandma Shoes. I'll be wearing a long black skirt to that party with big old clunky, super comfy, Genuine Grandma Shoes on my feet. And I'm sure some people will notice and wonder why a person who looks fairly young still wears shoes like that. If they ask me, I'll skim over the chronic pain and share the story of the SAS shoe store owner who trusted me, a total stranger, and made it just a little bit easier to walk in my shoes.
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