The mall is not my friend!

Today, I decided, was a good day to buy a new pair of athletic shoes. Although mine are fairly new and have lots of wear remaining, it often feels like my feet expand and grow bigger than my shoes. Maybe moving up a size would help. So head up high. Shopping face on. I'm headed to the mall. Oh heavens, I've come to hate the mall! Although I'd love to be an all-day shopper, my feet insist that the mall is not my friend. Since it's the middle of the week, I hardly expected that the parking lot would be crowded, but it was. Christmas shoppers, I decided. But my husband reminded me that a lot of people were off work for Veterans Day and they all decided that the best way to spend their holiday was to ruin my shopping trip by taking all the parking places.

My first surprise came when my favorite shoe store had vanished from its spot on the boulevard outside the main mall. Poof! Gone. It had simply vanished. I stopped at a nearby shoe store to see if they carried my usual brands. They didn't. They affirmed that my favorite store had closed and suggested a store on the second story of the main mall. I looked at my feet as if to ask an unruly child, "can you behave long enough for me to find this place inside the mall?" They scowled back at me in dismay. Of course not. They hate everything about the mall. They can't stand the thought of shopping.

But I put on my game face and headed up the boulevard, into the mall and straight up the escalator.  Since I needed hair products, I ducked into a store and quickly bought the cosmetic items. I asked for directions to the shoe store that had been recommended by the store on the boulevard. I made my way past several stores and, as I feared, the store didn't carry the brands I wanted. They suggested Dillard's which, of course, is the anchor store all the way at the other end of the mall. My feet scowled again and shot the intense pain signal pain to my brain. I scowled back and told my feet to get over it. We had a mission to accomplish.

Once inside Dillard's, I quickly found out that they stocked the usual brands of comfort footwear my feet demand. But their selection wasn't great. As I tried on a few pair of athletic shoes, a woman next to me complained of fallen arches and how limited her shoe selection had become. Privately, I joined my feet in a bitter scowl as I noticed that she was trying on boots with two inch heels. What I would give to wear boots of any kind, much less any kind of shoe with two-inch heels. Sorry, but I wasn't feeling sympathetic about her arches! Finally I found the shoes I wanted but they were a little too large. So the man offered to order my size and have them shipped to my house. That sounded great. But the man immediately disappeared and was busy helping other customers. While I mentally calculated the distance to my car, my feet ached even though I was seated. After waiting for the salesman far beyond what my feet would have allowed, I finally asked one of the other sales staff to tell my salesman that my feet had run out of time and I would order the shoes online. And off I went.

I stopped and rested my feet a few times as I made my way through the mall, down the boulevard and to the place where my car was parked.  After what seemed like miles, I was finally in my car and drove home shoeless and in pain. By the time I got home, it was dark and the ice was not a welcome remedy for my foot pain. But experience has taught me that it's the only remedy for nerve pain. I elevated, iced and went online to order shoes like the ones I'd found in the store. It's just too bad I have to try them on before I can buy shoes. The moral of my story?I should never try to by "comfort" shoes when my feet are in a bad mood!