Momma Went Shopping!

The heat can do strange things to a person’s mind and maybe I’ll blame this latest little adventure on mild heat exhaustion… I’m somewhat surprised with myself but know that my mid 20’s daughter will take great delight in hearing about her Momma’s shoe buying frenzy.

She is a delightfully feminine woman, with a serious fetish for shoes – brilliant red stilettos with swingy skirts, multi coloured sparkly flats with shorts and a camisole, high heeled leather boots with long legged denim jeans – you name it, she’s got just the right pair of shoes for any outfit. Now, don’t get the wrong impression – she’s also an intelligent, successful career woman and mother; we don’t have “bimbos” in our family!

La Ceiba is a woman’s shoe fetish paradise with the most outrageous creations offered in windows, shops, in the streets and in pickup trucks all over the town. I’ve seen everything imaginable from hideously high, brilliantly coloured heels, to rather sensible basic black or brown loafers to sandals that would confuse a carpet weaver with its assembly of laces and clips fastening them and flip flops of every colour of the rainbow and even with high heeled soles.

I’ve watched the young, and not so young, women stride, stagger, lurch or tippy toe about town wearing their stylish footwear and grimace to myself about the level of pain and/or damage they are doing to themselves and their feet all in the name of fashion.

I admit, in my 20’s I was rather typical and went for the high heels when truly dressing up but that was such a rare occurrence, certainly not more than half a dozen times a year, that I didn’t do any lasting harm. I spent a number of years working in construction trades and learned to love my steel toed leather work boots (especially after they started making them in small women’s sizes) and wore them constantly for work, hiking and just general walking around in a small northern town.

Now that I’ve been living in La Ceiba for a number of years, I’ve developed a habit for sturdy open toe sandals, both to accommodate miles of daily walking and a severely arthritic back. They aren’t pretty by any stretch of the imagination, are purely utilitarian in purpose and I actually regard them as an orthopaedic assistance (trying to keep myself from hating the look of them so much!)

I have been needing to replace a worn out pair of sandals, stalling and procrastinating because I really hate shopping for clothes or shoes and had been half heartedly looking around town for a replacement pair. I snapped yesterday, girded my loins and forced myself out to the Mall in hopes that someone, somewhere, would have one single pair of flat, comfortable, walking sandals for me to purchase.

I honestly believe that the fashion police took pity on me…. Everywhere I went there were outrageous sales, a wide variety of flats and even some fun colours to choose from! I may not have found sensible sandals but I’ve got enough pairs of shoes (that I can walk comfortably in) to last me for hundreds of miles in my waunderings through La Ceiba. All in all, prices ranged from under $10 to a high off $30 (no discount on the sturdy walking shoes!) so I’m well set for quite some time for under $100 USF and most especially won’t have to face the ordeal of shoe shopping for quite some time to come!

I also admit that I won’t be wearing the red high heeled sandals for more than brief moments at a time, but simply couldn’t resist. Daughter will be proud of my “girl attack” and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that she’ll be “borrowing” them if I bring them back to Canada with me!