night 2001-03-20 010320_72.html
Shoes....lots of shoes
Earlier this evening I stood in line behind two women who were in the process of buying roughly 30 pairs of shoes (I am estimating, but not exaggerating). They had more than one pair of several styles, sometimes in different colors, sometimes in the same color. I think there were at least 4 pair in one style (high-heeled red open toed slingbacks, with a square toe and a bow, if you’re interested), so it’s not that there was one pair for each woman in each style.
I could have switched to the other line, which was moving faster, but after about the fifth pair, I got interested, and spent the rest of the time thinking up reasons why they might have been buying so many shoes:
1) The obvious one -- shoe junkies with money to burn.
2) They just got back from a Peace Corp stint, have almost no shoes left, got well-paying jobs, and are celebrating and stocking up. (My college roommate said it took her a while to get used to wearing "real shoes", instead of sandals or no shoes at all, when she got back from Africa.) Note: the shoes they were currently wearing make this unlikely, unless this was not their first store.
3) They’re in charge of wardrobe for a hot new sitcom being filmed about dot-commers in the tech corridor outside Boston (who apparently dress better than their real-life counterparts, but that’s television).
4) They plan to donate them to charity, on the theory that Good Will shoppers deserve something brand new for a change. (The styles chosen didn’t seem terribly practical for anyone who needs to get a lot of wear out of their shoes, though.)
5) Money to burn and they’re having a theme party.
Any other explanations? Mail them to me.
Anyway, the whole incident went a long way toward assuaging any guilt over the three pair I bought.
Posted by dichroic at March 20, 2001 08:31 PM