Fashion is Torture

Today was the big Mother-Daughter Shopping Trip. I didn't play Tour Guide (tm) today; instead I was a chauffeur. We decided to go over to Santa Monica, since downtown and the Third Street Promenade there have tons of stores, including Robinsons-May (for you non-SoCal readers, an upscale store, kind of like Macy's, but not as pricey as Nordstrom's), Old Navy, the Gap, and the like. My job was to ferry our intrepid shoppers forth, and then linger at bookstores and the like until your humble chauffeur was called forth to perform his duties once again.

Some of the purchases today involved shoes. Now, a wise man does not venture forth into saying anything other than either neutral or flattering comments about women's shoes. When my opinion was solicited, I merely said, "Oh, those look good on you!" or "Those are nice, but...[add comment in here about how some better-looking/less expensive pair would look truly outstanding]"

But you know what? There is one thing I must say, and I'm gonna say it now. I'm the kind of guy who has never been impressed by or seen any reason for high-heeled shoes. I personally think short pumps or flats are just as nice as any other shoes, and look a lot better than those stiletto heels. They've got to be far more comfortable too. I remember back in the day when I was in college, a friend and I were alone in the dorm room of some female friends of ours, who had left to do something or other and would be returning fairly soon. We were all trusted friends, so they had no problem leaving us alone in their dorm. My buddy spotted a pair of high heels belonging to one of the girls, who was, um, rather zaftig and had fairly large feet for a woman. We were curious, since he was an only child and my sisters are much younger than me, to try on a pair of women's high-heeled shoes.

Our resulting experiment would probably have looked to an observer like a god-awful attempt at silent comedy. We shuffled, shifted, stumbled, and damn near twisted our ankles walking across the room in these shoes. We both expressed wonderment at *why* women would insist on subjecting themselves to such awkwardness. I've never bothered to try on women's shoes since, but my feelings about high-heeled shoes just solidified based on that incident.

Flash-forward to about twenty years later, at Robinsons-May. I'm sitting in the women's shoe department watching ten different pairs on the floor being tried on one by one. I keep encouraging my wife to go for the pumps. Luckily, she's like me: she's not all that crazy about high heels either. After the shoes were taken care of, and the ladies retired to the dressing rooms to try on dresses, skirts, and the like, I decided to kill time by checking AIM on my Sidekick [T-Mobile, contact me directly with my check for participating in product placement. Thanks]. I chatted with an old friend, and since she is female, decided to get her opinion. I told her we were shoe shopping, and I mentioned how I thought high-heeled shoes were not easy to wear, and openly wondered why in the world women continue to buy them.

She responded, "You know, we do it for you guys. We do it so we look good. That's really the only reason why."

I later told my wife about this conversation, and she agreed. Now that's a pretty unscientific sample, to be sure, but two women independently saying the same thing can't be wrong. Well, as far as I'm concerned, high heels can go the way of the dodo for all I care. Whoever invented them was definitely *not* a woman. Come to think of it, these days wouldn't high heels be considered a weapon? They'll make you take them off when you go through airport security, but by god, those stiletto heels would be great for poking someone's eyes out, or for forcing someone to walk on them through turbulence-- especially if they're male and have never worn high heels before. Talk about torture.