Wrong Shoes

So I had a meeting this morning and thought it was going to be a sit-down meeting ... So I wore these really cute wedge shoes (I love them - they are casual yet dressy, black canvas peep-toe with a 3-inch wedge). Normally, these are shoes I reserve for job interviews or meetings ... Events that don't require me to be on my feet for long periods of time and certainly don't involve walking any farther than to my car, my seat or the restroom.

But I misjudged my meeting. And what I thought was to be sit down 20-30 minute question/answer time ended up being a walking tour of an elementary school media center.

Let me stop here and say: For those of you who don't know, I LOVE a library. Any library. For me, libraries are a second home, filled with family and friends and characters waiting to become friends. I am a book lover. I love hard backs, paper backs, e-books, book jackets, book shelves, computer-access to books, blogs, magazines ... I love the technology aspects that are associated with the library ... If it's not clear, libraries are one of my happy places. And it's my goal to become a librarian - once I suck it up and take the GRE, that is.

So I have been accepted as a substitute teacher for our school district and I'm trying to make myself known to some of the local principals ... And today I met with a local elementary school librarian (who was very nice, BTW) and wore the wrong shoes.

Now, if you've never chosen the wrong shoes for certain activities, you can't really understand how this impacted me. So let me share.

I was walking around in the wrong shoes from about 8:45 this morning until around 11 am ... And then I stopped by Home Goods (not to really shop - my friend Paula works there and she had mentioned that they have gotten some great new comforters and quilts in & since I was just a couple of miles away, it made sense to stop in and say hello and take a gander at the new goods ... BTW - I only bought two things - a wall cling for the kids' book nook and a towel stand for our half bath). And then I remembered that I needed to go the grocery store. By now it was Noon and Wal-Mart was the nearest grocery ... You know where this is heading, don't you?

Well let me ruin the surprise - I didn't quite become one of the People of Wal-Mart, but it was a near, near miss.

By the time I made it to Wal-Mart, my left pinkie toe and my left bunion (yes, I have a bunion) hurt so badly, I was hobbling. I made it to the back of the store (of course they put the shoes in the back of the store!), I could barely walk.

Unbelievably, Wal-Mart had no women's or girls' flip-flops in my size.

So I hobbled around until I found the last pair of little boys 4/5 plastic flip-flops in blue-camo and I was back in business.

But now it's hours later (I'm waiting up on my parents who are driving down tonight for Labor Day weekend) and even with my feet propped up, my toe and bunion are absolutely throbbing.

The moral of this story?

Cute shoes = pain. Ugly shoes = pain-free.

Happy Labor Day Weekend!