I bought some shoes OR maybe I have a sense of personal style after all

[Alan H]

I revolt at the image of myself, preening in front of the mirror while I get dressed, wondering if the stripes in my tie accent the contrasting color in my socks. That's the image I get in my head, when you folks talk about everybody having a sense of personal style. Seriously, I just get dressed in the morning, or evening, or whatever, and I hope that what I put on is appropriate for the event. However, " a sense of personal style"??? Bleccch. However, I suppose that the last nine months or so are an example of how I might have in fact, regretfully have my own style.

pardon me while I gag, momentarily....

About nine months ago, actually more like a year ago, the "budget-conscious" brown leather (?) dress shoes that I dearly loved, cracked across the point where the leather flexes above the ball of your foot. It was a terminal crack, there was no rescuing those shoes. So, regretfully....because there was a LOT of life left in every other part of the shoes, they went in the garbage bin. I HATED to do that, aside from that irreperable crack, they were perfectly good shoes.....

just like aside from those two gaping holes, those socks are PERFECTLY GOOD SOCKS...ditto for underwear, but I digress....

Anyway, I have a pair of black wingtip dress shoes that I like a lot and that I think do well with a kilt. Wingtips seem a bit conservative for a lad like me, but what the heck. I like 'em, I wear 'em. So I decided, months ago that I would look for wingtips, and barring that, some very conservative dress shoes, maybe a "cap toe" like my old ones were.. I looked at my usual haunts for months (Big Five Sports super-ridiculously discounted rack) , finding nothing. ....until yesterday when I was in Big Five looking for green knee-high athletic sox, since mine are stretched out.

There on the rack for ....get this....$19... were brown dress shoes in a style that was acceptable, if not what I really wanted. I grabbed a pair and tried them on. They fit just fine. However, as I looked at them more closely, I realized that when it came right down to it, they were pretty cheap shoes. They weren't leather. They had molded soles, like athletic shoes. They were the same brand as the ones that cracked on me. Hmmmm....I decided to wait and get something a lot nicer, so I put them back on the rack.

I'm not sure if you realize how different that is, from my usual modus operandi. Brown shoes are brown shoes, eh? I mean...*duh*.

Well, months and months ago I had walked into Macy's and found two examples of what I liked....but they're $180 a pair for one pair, and $117 a pair for the other. Now, if there's anything that I am, it's FRUGAL, and I can't stomach dropping that kind of money on shoes that I don't wear very much. So I just didn't buy them a the time, figuring that sooner or later, I'd find something for a LOT less $$. BTW, I don't even look into specialty shoe stores, they're just ridiculously outside my price range.

Well, months went by...and no brown dress shoes. I discovered that my life didn't depend on having a pair of brown dress shoes in my closet, and my disposable income went into other things. Then, yesterday as I said, I was out looking for a pair or two of BIG green athletic knee-high socks for the Pleasanton Games. Big Five *still* doesn't carry anything that both goes around my enormous calves AND up nearly high enough to turn over, the other sport shop in town was closed on Sunday and Target gives me a headache. The Nike shop in the swanky shopping center didn't have anything, either, but the girl there, told me to check in Macy's. OK, so over to Macy's I went....no green socks. But while I was there, I checked in the shoe department. They were having a big sale.

Those $117 brown dress shoes were marked down to $69, and on top of that, with the sale, they were 25% off. .....and they had my size. And so it is, that I have walked off with a pair of really nice, sewn-sole, leather sole, actual leather wingtip dress shoes, for a price that I can stomach... $57.

And I think they will look just fine, albeit a bit conservative (but then, I'm OLD) with kilts.

I'd show you a picture, but c'mon...they're brown dress shoes, calm down! oh, ALL RIGHT. They're almost identical to these.





What's the unusual lesson here? I mean, I bought a pair of shoes, whoopdedoo. The interesting thing is that I decided on a "look" that I wanted, and then when presented with *much* less expensive options that probably would have done the job, I opted to wait until the more expensive option that I actually wanted, became available at a price I could stomach. The fact that I happened to find them on sale on that particular day was just freak coincidence, I don't walk into Macy's more than twice or three times a year. I also didn't rush out and just buy something, and who cares about the price, but that part won't surprise anybody who knows me.

I decided on a look that I wanted, and then I waited until an affordable option in that style became available. Well...hmph. Maybe I DO have a "personal style". BUT I'M NOT PREENING IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR.