I love my feet.
When we lived in Boston I was working in the advertising department at Filene’s (remember Filene’s??). One of the perks of the job was having access to the sample sales to unload merchandise that was photographed for the catalogs, since it couldn’t go back on the selling floor. Each department would hold a sample sale down in the buyers’ “offices” (cubicles) and all the advertising folks would scamper down from the 8th floor to be first in line (if you didn’t get there early you would be left with slim pickings). I would come home with $15 comforters, $2 towels and $10 handbags.
The best sample sale BY FAR was for shoes. You see, I am a sample size 6 shoe. When photographing shoes for a promotion, they would shoot the smallest size which was almost always a 6. Once shot, the shoes usually didn’t go back on the selling floor (they were marked with a big X on the bottoms) and they’d be at the next sample sale.
The beauty of the shoe sample sale – compared to the bedding sample sale – is that while everyone could use a duvet, very few people had size 6 feet.
On shoe sample sale day my friend and forever shopping partner would get the call from the shoe buyer that the sale was on. I’d grab an empty shopping bag and we’d sneak down the back staircase, through the maze of cubicles until we reached the small conference room which contained one long table covered in never-worn shoes, all a size 6 and all $5 a pair.
That’s right. $5 a pair!
Leopard calf hair ankle booties! Red kitten heels! Pink ballet flats! Black Mary Janes! I bought them all. I had a very impressive shoe collection for a twenty-something making $30k a year as a copywriter.
When I left my job at Filene’s and we moved out of South Boston (7 boxes of shoes in the moving van), I arrived at my new job with an impressively strong shoe game. And I loved wearing every pair. Each day I’d dress and show up to work in heels. Not only was I able to walk around the office all day in pointy toed boots and platform wedges, I drove the hour to and from work wearing them! Wearing heels make me feel glamorous, but they also enabled me to wear pants without hemming them to fit my 5 foot frame. I was literally wearing heels from 7am until 8pm every day. I was, apparently, slightly insane.
Fast forward a decade or two, and you will have a hard time finding a shoe with any height in my closet. Waaay in the back I have a pair of black heels that make my feet weep after wearing them for only an hour. I could potentially get a few hours out of a wedge, but that’s about it.
My closet is filled with flats and sneakers. I might as well own stock in Rothy’s I have such an embarrassing number of pairs #sorrynotsorry.
Back to my feet.
Once, I was coming home from work on the T in Boston (wearing jeweled kitten heeled thong sandals) and a very nice homeless man was staring at me until he finally drunk shouted at me: “You have really beautiful feet!” I was flattered.
My feet are small and proportioned. My toes behave accordingly, and are in perfect descending order of length. My feet look good in any shoe, because every shoe looks good in the prototype size 6. In the summer, my feet turn a beautiful bronze from the sun.
And the best part about my feet? They always stay the same size! So while I have bins of pants that span 4 sizes, my shoes have always fit perfectly and never disappoint me.
I could always count on my feet.
That is, until my feet started failing me.
More on that tomorrow.
Life of kk 