Bad, Bad Shoes!

I remember many years ago I was going on an all expense paid trip to the Bahamas that my best friend had won. We both worked at a major retailer in the cosmetic department. Me for Estee Lauder and her for Elizabeth Arden. Elizabeth Arden at that time had an incentive program for sales. If you met your sales consistently for a specified period of time, you won an all expenses paid trip to the Bahamas. Paradise Island to be exact. For a week! She won and invited me so off we went.

A little background. Before I worked for Lauder, I worked for Arden and was well on my way to winning my own trip. I was promoted and moved to Lauder before I could win. I felt cheated. They said that I was too good of a sales person to be on a smaller line like Arden. They felt my sales ability would benefit Lauder more. I was sad at not winning the trip but in the end I got to go anyway.

My friend and I spent weeks getting ready. I am the type that when I go on a trip, I have outfits put together ahead of time and all is coordinated from hats to shoes, from my head to my toes. The day for travel I had decided to wear a pair of white pumps. I wore a white skirt, a white tube top and a pink cardigan over it. It was a matching outfit I got at the mall….the Limited, I think. I was looking good. My pumps were a pair of high heeled white Nine West pumps. In lies the rub.

I looked marvelous! (imagine Billy Crystal saying that) I felt transformed and ready for an adventure. We flew straight to the Florida. In Florida, I notice that everything was pink and tropical and made me imagine flamingos everywhere. I was in the Miami Vice mode! (That used to be my favorite show and I still am in love with Crockett!) We made it thru customs and we did have to do a lot of walking in the airport. My shoes began to rub my heel...both heels. We had to go to another airline and we caught a prop plane. That was a harrowing trip. I knew that we were going to just drop into the ocean and die. It only held 6 people and was very noisy and bumpy! Thank god we finally got out of that plane.

We landed in the ocean(I was hoping for a runway) and we were let off at a dock right at Paradise Island. My shoes were starting to hurt. They fit just fine before and I had worn them before...about 3 times to church. We walked around for about an hour and my feet...heels began to really hurt. For some reason , we did not have our luggage yet or I would have changed shoes. Well finally about 3 hours later and with me trying not to show the pain from my heels we finally got our luggage and went to our rooms. Those cursed shoes!

My heels were torn open…both of them. The skin had been rubbed off the back of my heels and I could barely walk. I was able to get some Band-Aids and put them on. I was not about to let those shoes ruin my trip. I wore tennis shoes the next day and made it through. Each night was misery as I could not really put any weight on my heels to sleep on my back. Each day , I had various pairs of sandals with straps that touched my raw heels all day long. Each night it was a lot of pain. I had made it through the day and just looked forward to not moving my feet at all at night. You do not realize how much the back of your heel moves in walking until there is a cut there.

I did everything I had planned, water sports and all. Even diving. I was concerned about sharks at the coral reef we dove down to. Can’t sharks smell a drop of blood miles away?

Well I had a blast each day and each night I just looked at those shoes. They were beautiful, white, a pearl white, but they were so very bad. I had paid a lot of money for them!

I never wore them again. I never saw them again either. The day we were leaving I decided that those shoes just could not go back home with me. They had been the source of my foot misery for my entire trip and that would be the last time they would cause me misery. I decided to leave those shoes in the hotel. I hid them in the closet or rather just left them there. Maybe they had decided that life in the Bahamas would be better for them.

Well I hope they are happy. They have been in the Bahamas to this very day. I often think about those shoes and how they betrayed me. Why? I do not know. They fit when I bought them and I had no problems the 3 times I had worn them to church. I have never even had a pair of white pumps since then. Crème has been the closest. So be warned. Easter is coming and people tend to buy white shoes. What ever you do, don’t buy white nine west pumps or you are taking your life in your hands!

White pumps bedamned!

What I do is kick them in the pants with a diamond buckled shoe!
~~Aileen Mehle~~