The Glitter Shoes of Death – or – Maybe I’m Old Enough To ReThink Stilletos

Yesterday I was walking out of church with my littlest dude–because we're religious like that–and I was all tricked out in my $6 sparkly shoes and very long flowery flowy skirt of favoritude—SIDEBAR: I love wearing long flowery flowy skirts of favoritude when it's rainy and windy out. I don't know why. Makes me feel all lady-like and olde fashioned. And it's probably just mental illness, because I really don't know what long skirts in storms have to do with olde fashioned lady-like-ness. Maybe I feel like I'm Laura Ingalls Wilder making my way to town to teach the poor little prairie children their letters and multiplication tables. In sparkly turquoise sequined shoes that I got for six smackers at the local weed-n-feed in Sleepy Eye. (Remember that? From the show? Little House on the Prairie? Sleepy Eye was like the big time. You could buy sequined prairie boots there.)

So anyway my boy grabbed my keys and ran to the car and I started to trot after him. Except my glitter-toes hit a wet oil slick in the parking lot and I went down. Not an all-at-once-SPLAT-down. Nope. It was sort of a slo-mo sequential splat-down. Like, I felt myself suddenly go into a time warp where my foot hit a slimy puddle and slid forward, but I caught myself by digging my heel into the pavement. And then the pavement betrayed me and my heel slid further so I flapped my arms like a humming bird in heat, which managed to keep me aloft just long enough for my thigh muscles to give out and throw me into the splits–which, sweeties, I haven't done since 1986. And then just before I totally bottomed-out onto the dirty oily blacktop, I managed to throw my exceedingly long arms down and catch myself thereby keeping the flowery flowy skirt from dredging through the muck and ruining the rest of my day.

That was fun.

My hands were black and covered with enough crude to solve our whole price-of-a-tank-of-gas problem. The hem of my floaty skirt was dragging and grey. And my boy was yelling "ARE YOU OKAY MOM? DID YOU HURT YOURSELF WHEN YOU FELL ON THE GROUND LIKE THAT? HEY, IS IT SLIPPERY? I LOVE TO SLIDE! WATCH ME NOW! I'LL SLIDE ON IT JUST LIKE YOU! WATCH!" 

Yeah. Just hand me the keys, kid, and shut it.

In my younger days I would totally have caught myself and turned the kersplat into a lovely lithe pirouette, leaping as though I had done it on purpose, and smiling to the delight of the audience in the parking lot. But those days are gone. Along with ice cream sundaes at midnight and jumping on a trampoline without having a Depends moment.

Man, I miss that. Being able to wear what I want without planning for possible muscle ruptures, eat what I want without wondering when the intestinal feedback might hit, and dance until dawn without my hips falling down around my ankles.  And while I'm grateful that I didn't end up in a full-body cast yesterday, I'm not quite grateful enough to give up the shoes. I mean they were freaking SIX BUCKS! You have to buy shoes when they're only six dollars, even if you're too old to be wearing them. It's a moral issue. Also, once you buy them you have to wear them. Because there are starving children in Africa. Think about that. The logic totally works.

Right. So I'm not willing to give up the trappings of youth as I age. But maybe I'll just not wear the blingie shoes when it rains. 

Now I have to think about how to rationalize the entire row of coconut creme sandwich cookies I ate while typing this. On the other hand, you're not in the room with me. You'll never know if I have any age related issues as a result of the cookies. So . . . it's all good.