Shoe, interrupted

By: LOUISE ESOLA - Staff Writer | Friday, September 30, 2005 10:37 PM PDT ∞

They, including Tom Hank's momma in the acclaimed film "Forrest Gump," say you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes. Where they're going. Where they've been.

To this nugget of pure Hollywood wisdom, I would like to add: When it comes to a woman and her shoes, you can tell a lot about her state of mind and whether she has finally come to her senses.

Men, please do not stop reading now. This is not the column equivalent of a dreaded "chick flick." This will explain why women (wives, girlfriends and teenage daughters) really need to be dropped off at the doorstep to the movie theater/restaurant while you search for parking. It has more to do with human compassion than gentlemen-like behaviors.

And these next few paragraphs will explain why she has 100 pairs of shoes, hardly wears any of them, but still insists on buying more out of necessity. This venture can get awfully expensive because some like to purchase matching handbags.

Read on, gentlemen.

Speaking for myself and most double X-chromosome shoe wearers, we women are crazy about shoes.

Not in the sense that one is "crazy" about hot fudge sundaes, or not so "crazy" about the person who strolls into the express line at the grocery store with a full cart.

I mean crazy in the literal sense.

First off, let's examine those of opposite sides of the threshold of shoe lunacy, shall we?

Take the woman in the match-with-mostly-everything beige Dr. Scholl's prescribed, double Velcro-strapped, no-slip rubber-soled, adequately-padded leisure shoe. If you have no idea what I am referring to, head to your local department store on senior citizen discount day.

See her? She's not shopping for another pair of shoes 'cause she already has them. See? Sure, they're not likely to make an appearance in Vogue magazine or in Paris Hilton's closet, but they do the job of protecting her feet from the elements. History, going back to the beige sandals of Biblical times, shows that this is why shoes were really created.

This woman is actually shopping for pantyhose, the kind that come to right below your knee-cap, and not the circulation-stopping kind that are pulling up past your hip and slide down your legs throughout the day, leaving you marching like a penguin by 5 p.m.

Sure, when this woman sits down, even while wearing a pair of slacks, you can see where her knee-high hose ends and where her fleshy knees begin. But she doesn't care because the nylon hose, like her shoes, are comfortable. Reasonable.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am not poking fun at those who were born during the first years of the automobile and television. The truth is, I envy the enlightened wisdom of such a woman.

For I, sadly, am among those on the dark side.

You see these women everyday. You may be her. You may have one living in your house.

She's that one struggling to get from her car to her office building wearing a pair of more visually-appealing strappy, sometimes pointy high heels.

Every step hurts. This woman is not in her right mind.

In some cases, she got the shoes at a gigantic department store shoe sale ---- an event that could compete with the stamina and gusto of a running of the bulls in Spain.

Although these shoes were painfully constrictive in the store, she bought them anyway because they were visually appealing. These shoes leave marks and blisters on her feet, as recently as just yesterday, and yet she is still wearing them today. They match her outfit and her handbag. At the end of a long workday, you can see this woman walking to her car as though she were walking on a bed of lava-hot coals.

But she'll wear them again tomorrow because they are, in your best high-pitched squeal please, "sooooooo cute."

This is not logical behavior, any psychotherapist might surely say.

So why do we women subject ourselves to this? We don't know. But if there is a shoe sale taking place, we'll be there. Why? Because we need new shoes. The other ones hurt our feet.

So if you see any of us walking around in the footwear equivalent of a torture chamber, feel sorry for us.

Your sentiments should be similar to how you would feel if you were touring a mental health facility and observed someone in a backless hospital gown eating Scrabble game pieces, or hollering at a trash can.

Louise Esola covers Oceanside schools. She can be reached at lesola@nctimes.com.