In search of comfortable shoes

by Lorraine Bartlett / Lorna Barrett / L.L. Bartlett

It's always annoyed me that women are labeled as shoe hounds.  There's a commercial where a vapid woman stares at her enormous shoe closet and wonder if she shouldn't buy some periwinkle-colored shoes because she doesn't have any.  (I feel like throttling her.)

How many women on HGTV's House Hunters say they need a BIG closet or even a room JUST for their shoes???  (Too many!)

So I never thought of myself as being a shoe hound ... until I found a truly comfortable pair of shoes. They weren't even expensive.  (I think they were $20 at Payless Shoe store.)  Whoa!  What a concept--an actual comfortable shoe.  I went back and bought another pair.  I wore those comfortable shoes until they fell off my feet. (They lasted more than a year of everyday HARD wear.)  They looked like little more than a slipper, but they were wonderful.

So ... then it came time to wear the replacement pair.  Uh-uh.  Wasn't gonna happen.  I wasn't going to wear them out and have NOTHING comfortable for my poor little tootsies.  I went to several Payless Shoe stores, but they said the style was discontinued.  They showed me what they had that was similar, and I bought a pair (paying $10 more than my comfees ) but those shoes HURT MY FEET.  I thought, "I just need to break them in."  HA!  I've worn them for about 30 hours around the house and they still hurt my feet.

I saw a pair of shoes in the L.L. Bean catalog that looked similar to my comfees.  They were $70 MORE than my comfees, but, hey, L.L. Bean.  They HAD to be good, right?  Well, I can wear them. They don't hurt my feet, but my feet aren't happy.

So what do you do when you are unhappy?  As I mentioned last week, seek advice from your BFFs. Leann Sweeney suggested I get a pair of Bzee shoes.  Back online I went.  Hmm... they're not exactly attractive, but I was desperate. I ordered a pair. That was during one of the terrible snowstorms and, on their trip across the country, my shoes ended up stuck in Pennsylvania for about four days. When they finally arrived, I decided they were even uglier in person than online.  (Gray and black. Ick!) But then I put them on my feet ... and if feet could sing, mine would have been doing an aria--in Italian!

BFFs know what they're talking about. These are the most comfortable shoes in the universe. I put them on first thing in the morning, and take them off last thing at night.  My feet are happy all day long. There's a lot of comfortable support, so I can even do aerobics in them!

Then ... I looked at them. They just aren't pretty.  I told Leann I couldn't wear them to the grocery store. She said it was the grocery store where she needed them most. 

Ponder, ponder. 

There was only one solution.  Buy a NICER looking pair of Bzees.  Guess what?  They came yesterday.

: )