My mom caused a proper argument at Thanksgiving by announcing, apropos of absolutely nothing during the mashed potatoes, that gold shoes are “a cry for help.” She said it looking directly at my feet. I was not even wearing the loafers that day. That’s how much this pair lives in my head now, apparently it precedes me into rooms.
Here’s the thing that started it. I had a date, a real one, second date, the kind where you’ve already decided you like the guy and now you’re just hoping your shoes don’t ruin it. I tried on four different outfits and landed on the black loafers I already owned, sensible, safe, correct.
Then I put on the gold ones instead at the last second, for no reason I can defend, and something clicked that I genuinely can’t explain except that the whole outfit suddenly looked like a decision instead of a compromise. Twenty two dollars at the thrift place on the corner, the one I’ve claimed as mine, and I almost put them back on the shelf because gold felt like a costume.
I did not put them back. Buy number six for the good column this year, and I say that fully aware buy number five was a blazer that made me look like a substitute teacher, so the bar was low.
The shine is the whole argument, honestly, both sides of it. Under restaurant lighting they catch every candle and every phone flash and look expensive in a way that has nothing to do with what I paid. Under office fluorescents at ten in the morning they look like I lost a bet. I have worn them exactly once in daylight, to a coffee meeting, and a coworker asked if I was “going somewhere after this,” which is the nicest way anyone’s ever told me to change my shoes.
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The sole is where I’ll admit the gamble part out loud. It’s slicker than my black pair, and Portland in November is one long wet sidewalk, so I’ve done an actual skate move outside a bar that I’m choosing to remember as graceful.
Nobody saw. I’m telling you anyway.
Cost per wear, and I did this math twice because the first number seemed too good. Six wears so far, twenty two dollars, that’s under four bucks a wear, which is obscene for something that reads as expensive and occasionally tries to kill me on wet concrete.
I know these aren’t for everyone’s closet. If your wardrobe is all neutrals and quiet good taste, these will look like they wandered in from someone else’s life. Mine’s not that tidy. They fit right in, wet sidewalks and all.
