This is Nuts!

Okay ... I know the stereotype: women are supposed to love shoes. Most women I know have, at some point in their lives, loved shoes, even if they do not now love shoes. At one time, I had a moderate love for shoes myself. However, after having a bunionectomy on one foot, my love for shoes changed more into a like for shoes. Then when I broke my other ankle, I really lost my love for shoes. Even more importantly, now that I've learned just how damaged my back is and know exactly how much high heels contribute to screwing up the female body's spinal alignment (all to make us women look sexy for men, so cleverly using such a delicious looking tool of torture that we often willingly go ahead and do it to ourselves!), I make my shoe choices much more carefully and with entirely different goals in mind. Today, it's all about comfort for me.

Don't get me wrong, though. A pretty pair of shoes can still turn my head, even now. Usually I end up thinking of how it will hurt me in some way, but that's beside the point. I do like my comfortable shoes to look nice, and whenever I find a shoe that looks particularly attractive and is also comfortable, I've been known to buy the same shoe in more than one color ... or an extra pair or two in the same pair as backups for when I wear out the first pair. I do that especially because I wear an odd size which is difficult to find in the first place.

Anyway, my love for shoes clearly was never anything like that of Carrie Bradshaw of Sex in the City who, in one episode, counted up all her shoes, did the math, and realized she could have bought a home -- in New York City, no less -- if she hadn't spent all her money on shoes! I never loved shoes THAT much, and I'm pretty sure I've never known anyone who's loved shoes that much. I also never had a love for the type of shoes Carrie loved -- I mean, some of her shoes were really pretty weird! (But then, so were quite a lot of her entire outfits ... ) Most heels hurt after about ten minutes -- or less, so I never got into them at all -- especially heels over a maximum of 2 inches. Teeter tottering around like Carrie Bradshaw looks totally ridiculous, and I had a job where I needed credibility. Actually, to put it bluntly, I prefer not to teeter totter at all.

Anyway, lately there's been this big thing for Dr. Scholl's shoes -- just the plain old standard Dr. Scholl's sandal I remember my mother liking when I was a little girl in the 1970s -- but the big thing about them now is that the wooden base is painted. It's such a big thing now that it even made the Martha Stewart show; she was showing people how to paint their own. Depending on where you are shopping (online offers the most options), you can buy them in all different patterns and colors -- stripes, dots, and so on. Some of them really are pretty cute, although it seems kind of weird to me that people really want a pair of shoes where the part you step on is painted -- so it's not even seen all that well while you're wearing it. But that's one of those things about fads ... they're always a bit silly.

Here's a cute pair you can pick up for the minimal cost of just $129.99. Wait -- $129.99? For a pair of Dr. Scholl's? Over $100? These are EXACTLY the same shoes my mother used to pick up at Walgreens, of all places, and probably for less than $20 way back then. The only difference is that this cute pair has been painted a lovely shade of sky blue, and then has white polkadots painted on top of that. So the paint job is worth $95? Oh, wait, sorry ... the paint was administered by an artist named Marie Hejl. Well, sorry, but if Picasso wanted to paint my shoes before I bought them, I still don't think I'd give him an extra $95 for doing it. (Maybe Dali.) Look, down there in the left hand corner of THIS PAGE, and it says, "May We Suggest" followed by a picture of a regular, unpainted pair of Dr. Scholl's shoes for just $34.99! Yet people are still willing to pay this kind of money for these -- or these, which I don't think are anywhere near as cute, myself.



Now, even if you are NOT artistically inclined, as I definitely am NOT, you can still buy some of the regular Dr. Scholl's, buy some paint (inexpensively), and paint the shoes yourself. A few stencils later, and you can have almost any of these painted shoes for no more than half the price they are selling for.

Heck, at that point, you can start taking orders from your friends, and charging $100. You'll make a nice profit and it will still save your friends a hefty chunk of change.

Try selling a pair on eBay -- who knows where you can go from there?

There's nothing wrong with this idea, either. After all, as I mentioned, Martha Stewart had a segment on her show about this. If Martha can do it, then you can, too! Or at least, I think that's pretty much her motto. Nothing she does is too terribly difficult -- or it's never seemed that way the fairly numerous amount of times I've caught her show. Sure, sometimes it's a bit time consuming to do ... or things LOOK difficult ... but what Martha shows you is that the things that look difficult and expensive and oh-so-chic really are not so much trouble to do yourself if you have just a little bit of time and a little bit of interest.

Give it a try ... buy a regular pair of Dr. Scholl's in your size, and go to town!

Or just buy a regular pair of Dr. Scholl's if you want a pair, skip the fad, and get back to stitching -- which is what I'm going to do. I always wanted a pair of those shoes because my mother liked them so much ... Now maybe I can find out why she liked them so much -- for $34.99, LOL.

Tags: Dr. Scholl's, Dr. Scholls, painted, Martha Stewart, Marie Hejl, shoes, feminist, feminism, sexy, high heels, Carrie Bradshaw, Sex in the City, fad, stitching, cross stitch