A lot of things changed in my life when I got married, but the biggest thing was my taste in shoes.
I brought a very large black garbage bag full of shoes into this marriage. It was not welcome. It might as well have been a large garbage bag full of manure by the way my husband reacted.
He liked the shoes I was wearing when we entered our apartment for the first time as a married couple. They were the only shoes I owned that were really comfortable so I wore them ALL the time. They were Doc Marten sandals and I had spent more on them than any other pair of shoes I had owned.
So the other fifteen or so pair of shoes that I dumped onto the closet floor were met with a look of disbelief from Brett.
“Do you like those Nine West sandals?” he asked me as he pointed out a pair of tan ankle high sandals that were given to me for helping do inventory at the outlet store that my friend managed.
“Uh….yes! That is why I brought them 1300 miles, along with all those other shoes on the floor, in that garbage bag, and dumped them on the floor of ‘our’ closet.”
“Do you wear them?”
“Well, my feet get really sweaty and stinky in them so I only wear them if I am going somewhere for under twenty minutes. So, no.”
Gone.
“How about these Bass hiking boots? Do you wear them?”
“Well, the shoelace broke off the last time I tried to put them on. That was eight months ago. Aren’t they cute though! Oh, but they rub my ankle wrong and give me a blister, so I can’t wear them hiking.”
Gone.
“What about these Payless high heeled black pumps?”
“Ya, those. I don’t really like high heeled pumps. Or Payless. I just thought I better hang onto them in case I ever wear that burgundy dress, that I don’t really like, that is hanging in the closet.”
Gone. And gone.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
So one of the first shopping trips we took was to Nordstrom to get me some new shoes. I had thrown out fifteen pairs after all!
Brett led me right to a shoe that he loved. I saw the price tag and turned to walk to the sales racks at the other end of the shoe department. He led me back. At the time, $140(ish…I don’t remember exactly) was a ridiculous price to pay for a pair of shoes.
I did like them though. And they were comfortable. And he was offering to buy them for me.
Eleven and a half years later my Cole Haan loafers are still one of my favorite pairs of shoes. They are the only surviving pair of shoes I own that I had during my first month of marriage. I guess Brett knew what he was talking about when he told me that I will spend far less on shoes if I spend more and get better quality.
Whims 