So shoe me

Last night I attended an event at an upscale department store's high-end shoe department. Ostensibly an opportunity to hear from a woman consultant on career development, it really was an opportunity for said department store to corral several hundred women in a room, feed them wine and cheese, and offer them 15% off designer shoes for that night only. Not that anyone cared about the presentation. They were all there for the shoes. Hell, the presenter herself was just there for the shoes.

I don't usually think of myself as being that different from my co-workers, but last night I felt it. I watched as two women (who theoretically make the same or less than I do) tried on $500 and $800 pairs of shoes. One mentioned how her mother would sometimes give her pairs of that same designer's shoes when she grew tired of them, and I thought of how my mother (and all of her sisters) have probably never owned a stiletto heel, nor had an occasion to wear one.

(One co-worker, in her 20's, teetering in a pair of 4 inch black patent leather heels, kept asking, "Wouldn't these look great with a pair of skinny jeans for going out?" as if a) the phrase "skinny jeans" has ever crossed my lips (other than a reference to the size 12's in the bottom dresser drawer with the zipper that just won't close til I lose another 5 lbs), and b) I go to any place where I could get away with wearing those and not look like a hooker.)