If The Shoe Fits

I’m sitting at the car dealership, signing my name on endless papers, turning in my trusty little Hyundai Accent for a new lease on a shiny pearl-black Elantra.  Four doors!  Air-conditioning!  Good on gas, especially now that gas price fluctuations look like temperature readings of a feverish child (100.5, 101.6, 100.6).

So I’m sitting there with Tom the head sales guy, before heading off to work, making this very grown-up lease purchase, nodding and uh-huhing like a pro as if I understand all the car-sales lingo that Tom is throwing out as he explains the various warranties and terms that I’m signing.  Plus I’m feeling very grown-up and summery in my new thrift-store stylish summer skirt, the bargain that I couldn’t wait to wear but had to because the weather hasn’t been that warm yet to go bare-legged.   But today, rain or shine, I’m signing a new lease for a new car and I’m wearing my new-to-me skirt with bare legs and last year’s summer mules!  So I’m feeling good, it’s a good day, I can feel good things happening!

I thank Tom, and he stands up to come around his desk to show me out, and as I rise from my chair, I really have no idea how I managed this but I did.   My feet get caught somehow and I stumble as I get up and nearly crash into Tom’s office door.  Which was embarrassing enough.  But this is me, and embarrassing enough is usually never embarrassingly enough.

My slip-on cute little mule shoe manages to come off of my left foot in my attempt to regain my balance, and lies there, on the floor, face down heel up.  Tom, who is shorter than me, stands there after making a little “whoa” sound when I lost my balance, and we both look down at my bare foot and my upturned shoe.  

Like my older sister taught me, when in a dilemna, think  “What would Jackie O do?” .   If this happened to Jackie O, Tom the head sales guy would have shown his chivalrous side and  bent down himself to turn over her shoe and hold it there while she slipped her dainty foot back in.   But this is 2009, and I’m not Jackie O.    I look at the dirty underside of my shoe.  I inwardly curse its dirtiness and its bad timing at exposing itself this way.   I can’t even nudge it with my toe to flip it on its right side again and slip my foot back in like it was nothing….noooooo, I have to bend down and turn my shoe over with my hand and straighten back up and then put my stupid shoe back on.   All of this with Tom the head sales guy looking on.   That whole process made it impossible for me to brush it off and act like this happens to me all the time.   There was nothing to say.  It was more of  a Bridget Jones moment than a Jackie O moment. 

You can dress me up in the cutest thrift-store skirts,  but you can’t take me out.  

Love,

Chantal Jones