December 30 - Three Pairs of Red Shoes

Today, my mom, my sister and I went shopping. Among our many stops was Famous Footwear, where we almost always acquire more shoes than we really need. Our quest: brown shoes for Mom, black flats for me. Mom knew exactly what she needed (she always buys essentially the same pair) and quickly found them. And I found some cute black shoes, but they didn't have my size. They did, however, have a red version of the same shoes in my size. I love red shoes, so of course I tried them on. Mom agreed that they were cute, but they also weren't what I needed. I looked around, but I couldn't find any black shoes I liked enough to own. And I kept wearing the red ones.

Eventually, Mom admired them so much that I got her to try some on as well. They had her size in red, and while she preferred black, she was stuck with red because there were no black pairs in her size either. She said she didn't know what to wear with them, but we talked through some ideas, and soon I had her convinced that she needed to buy them. Of course, I wasn't going to part with mine either.

The only problem now was that, given Famous Footwear's eternal buy-one-get-one-half-off sale and Mom's other pair of shoes (remember the predictable brown ones?), we needed one more pair of shoes. It should be noted that at this point in the shopping day, we'd completely abandoned the mantra that even if you buy it on sale, you're still not saving money, you're spending it.

So, I asked Becca whether she'd like some red shoes and went back to the shelf. And there they were! Red came in her size too. She put them on, I kept up my lawyerly persuasivenss, and we left with matching shoes.

It should be noted that ten years ago I'd never have gone for this scheme. I did NOT do matching. A decade and several hundred miles between us have changed my opinion. It's not like we completely match anyway. The red shoes mean something different to each of us. Mom is thinking they may take her wardrobe accessorizing in new and exciting directions (thought you'll note that she still wore them with a red dress), Becca is thinking these are the shoes she was searching for last year when she found the perfect dress that only needed red shoes to complete the outfit (and so, since she still has it, she promptly wore them with that dress), and as for me, I figure I can just wear them instead of black shoes with whatever I feel like (and I have been doing so ever since).

As for Scout, she wants to know why the red shoes didn't come in her size too?