Shoes

Sometimes I don't have a clue. The other day I was at Macys looking at earrings. The woman on the other side of the twirly rack held up some earrings to show her friend and said, "How do you like these?"

"I love them!" her friend responded, nearly bounding to her side to admire the dangly darlings.

I can say that I have never felt that way about a piece of jewelry. I might as well be picking out spark plugs for all the connection I feel toward it., and I'm in much the same boat when it comes to shoes.

Recently I found a pair on sale, basic black, with a strap. I thought they were kind of cute, but just making a mental judgment like that makes me break out in a cold sweat. Not once while perusing a display of shoes, have I ever pulled a pair triumphantly from the rack exclaiming, "Oh my gosh, I love these! I've just gotta have 'em!" There is always a cloud of self-doubt drizzling on my shoe parade.

I slipped on one of those itty, bitty pretend stockings and slid my foot into the shoe. As I bent to fasten the buckle, I asked the clerk, "Do these look like old lady shoes?"

"No," she assured me. "There was a 'twenty-something' gal in earlier who loved them. They're darling. Really."

Long ago (when I thought I could tell cute from duddy) I tried on a pair of white summer shoes. As I admired them in the low shoe mirror, the man who was assisting me asked if I really liked them.

"They look a little old for you," he hinted.

I bought them anyway, but spent the whole summer comparing my shoes to everyone else's shoes in Relief Society instead of listening to the lesson, wondering how they all knew 'cute' when they saw it while I was doomed to purchase old lady shoes. I swear those shoes made me totter.

By now I should know better than to think I have the knack for shoes, but sometimes I still stand hopefully before the shoe display, waiting for shoe wisdom to arrive like a fashion GPS pointing directly to "cute."

At Women's Conference, one speaker taught that it's all right to be absolutely no good at some things. I sighed and looked at my feet. My blue and white, double knotted running shoes which clashed with my slacks proved her point. I could see I was sinking to the bottom of the fashion barrel. A minuscule part of me took comfort in her words. For a moment it felt all right to be no good at cute.

Let the shoe-aholics revel in their pumps and slings and stilettos. Let their closets joyously overflow, their shoe racks burgeon. I will be happy for them.

And I'll be sure to keep my feet tucked out of sight beneath my chair.