Wild Tangent Tuesday: Shoes and Handbags

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There have often been times that I have wondered if I'm missing some important part of my DNA as a woman. I know I'm a woman, and if you don't know how I know that, you probably need to repeat some important high school classes. But besides the basic make-up of being a woman, I seem to lack one very dominant quality found in most women: the love of shoes and handbags.

At first, I noticed this love for shoes and handbags among only some members of my gender, and so I figured I wasn't too weird if I wasn't one of them. I don't know if my circle of friends has changed, or if it comes with age, but more and more of the women around me have been showing symptoms. This is not to say that there is anything at all wrong with women who go gaga over pretty shoes or designer handbags. Some of my closest friends and family members are shoe/handbag fanatics. I'm just saying that I find it curious that this particular feminine quality doesn't apply to me. I'm immune. I do appreciate the aesthetic qualities of certain shoes/handbags from time to time, but I don't feel drawn to them, want to go out shopping for them, or want to spend unreasonable amounts of money on them.

The more people in my life who have pointed out their enthusiasm for shoes/handbags lately have caused me to question the reasons I am not part of this group. Upon reflection, the answers came to me clearly.

Let's start with handbags. I've never been much for carrying a purse. I did eventually break down and buy my first purse, a cheap black one from Target. My problems with purses are these:

• Purses are made to either be held or hang from your elbow or your shoulder.
• I don't like having to hold something while I shop. I once had a purse that had no strap (a clutch, if you will), and I would set it down all the time and forget it places. Luckily, I had no money to speak of at the time, so it didn't really matter.
• To hang something from your elbow requires you to keep your arm bent the entire time. That bugs me.
• In order for the purse to hang from my shoulder, that would first require that the strap can actually fit around my bulky shoulder (including whatever jacket I might be wearing at the time), which they rarely do.
• When they do fit over my shoulder, they face the difficult task of staying on my shoulder while I walk, stoop, bend, and move around. Most of the time, I end up being thwacked in the back of the head by a heavy purse or thunked by the weight as it comes crashing down to the crook of my elbow (where, as previously mentioned, I don't want it).
• One of the main reasons I'm not big on handbags is because, no matter how much I try to fight it or deny it, I am a pack rat. I have never had a purse, diaper bag, or backpack that didn't eventually fill up with a bunch of junk that wasn't ever worth lugging around each time I leave the house. I don't know how it all adds up. Maybe I'm bad at filtering what goes into it (and my hubby doesn't help much with that part), or maybe I'm bad at getting around to cleaning it out from time to time. All I know is that they all end up full of junk.
• Style. The thought of changing what bag I carry each day based on my clothing is just too much for me. My fashion is not always elaborately planned, and that would involve putting everything I need for an outing into a different bag each time. I just don't have time for that! Plus, I'm bound to forget and lose things if I'm switching from bag to bag every day.
• And the ones that are only popular because of the brand make no sense at all to me. A handbag doesn't look any more appealing to me (in fact less) when it has the letter C all over it or LV or any of the others. What's the point??

Now, let's discuss shoes. Shoes are practically an affliction of mine at this point in my life. It all started going downhill for me in middle school when my feet passed up my sister's and my mother's and grew to the status of skis rather than feet (get it? downhill. . . skis?). It became rather difficult to find the shoes I wanted in my size. That, and a serious tomboy phase got me wearing men's shoes instead. They were comfortable, and I could always find my size. I got a job when I was 16 that required me to be on my feet much of the time. A few years later, my hips and knees were getting sore rather often. A trip to the doctor discovered that my arches had fallen. Those boy shoes were too wide around my ankles, and hadn't given me proper support. I had to have orthotics specially made for me to wear constantly. I completely missed the cute clog fad because the shoes with no backs couldn't hold my orthotics. I couldn't even wear sandals (gasp!), but I couldn't give them up entirely. Sometimes, I cheated and just wore sandals anyway.

Now that I'm no longer working on my feet all day, my feet are doing better. I don't use my orthotics unless I'm going for a long walk or running, and they're actually out of date anyway (you're supposed to get new ones every two years or so, and mine are about 10 years old-- I think). But, I still have problems with shoes.

• First, my feet are a size 10.5 or 11, so it's hard to find my size. I end up in shoe stores, having to ask "the help" if they have any other sizes besides the ones on the shelf. They get their little scanners out and call the other store, just to find out that they don't make my size, or maybe my size is available. . . in Portland. It's hard not being average. Shoe shopping is just a painful, embarrassing process that usually ends in disappointment, either from finding a shoe I want that isn't in my size, or buying a pair of shoes to find that they are uncomfortable, which translates to a total waste of money.
• Next, I still have to be concerned about arch support and comfort even if I don't use the orthotics. Many cute shoes can make my feet sore, and I just don't think it's worth it.
• Then, there is a sense of style required in collecting shoes. As I mentioned before, my outfits are not that thought-out. I want a shoe to go with everything, not a shoe for each thing I wear.
• And the final pin in my shoe-loving coffin: I married a man who is shorter than me (who I love dearly and is more than worth any shoe fetish I may have had to sacrifice). But, that rules out high heels. Oh well. I feel too tall around most people anyway, so I wouldn't want to accentuate it even if it wasn't for the love of my life. The flatter the shoe the better!

My shoe needs consist of the basics:

• An everyday shoe that is comfortable (usually brown).
• A church shoe, although I'm usually required to buy a few colors because you can't get away with black with all skirts and dresses (grumble). I actually have the same shoe in brown and white to take care of that problem (why mess around when you know what works, right?).
• A comfortable pair of sandals. I actually love sandals. Feet have to breathe in the heat! And, if they are of the type that can safely go underwater, all the better. If not. . .
• I have to have a sandal that can go in the water. Right now, I have Chacos. If I go hiking and there is a stream, creek, river, waterfall, ocean. . . I have to get wet. At least my feet. It just isn't any fun without it. About the only time this isn't true is in the dead of winter, and even then, sometimes I get my feet wet.
• Ummmm, that's about it. I do have a pair of crocs that we bought on sale so I can slip them on really quickly to step out of the house or into the garage.

So, if you are one of my friends who loves shoes/handbags, I hope I haven't alienated you. I'll still go shopping with you if you want me to, and I'll try to act interested. Actually, I will be interested because I'll be with a friend, I just won't be interested for my own benefit. But I did put all those pretty (I hope) pictures on this post just for you, which reminds me: I couldn't have alienated you because you were probably too busy admiring the pictures to read what I wrote. So we're good!

So what is my weakness? My shoes or handbags, if you will? What do I want to spend my money on, even though I don't need it? We'll have to get into that another time. This post is way too long! If you stayed with me through this whole thing, thanks!