Shoe fetishes and vagina buffets

I need more shoes. OK, need probably isn’t the correct word. I would like a new pair of shoes. I’m going to a school fundraiser on Saturday night and I don’t think sneakers will cut it. Sneakers don’t say “masked ball” and that’s the fancy theme. I’ve got loads of high heels in my wardrobe, but I can’t totter around in them all night. I’ve lost the knack. It’s been almost a year since I wore fancy shoes. The essential muscles have atrophied.

I think a pair of ballet flats might do the trick – stylish and practical. They’ll also come in handy when I wander woozily off into the night (because I am cheap and allergic to catching cabs unless the Harbour Bridge is involved).

So I’m trekking to the sales today, despite being a teensy bit broke and already owning 30 pairs of shoes.

Despite my reluctance to wear them, I’m a bit sad about those 30 pairs of heels going mouldy in my wardobe. Bloody wet weather. They’ll all be totally out of fashion if I ever get a job again and require skyscraper footwear. Each one has gorgeous, spindly heels, apart from a couple with wooden wedges. Fashionistas blather on about how comfortable wedges are. But, let me tell you, not when they’re wooden they’re bloody not. Those ones are like medieval torture instruments.

Brutal shoes didn’t matter in my old job. I led a privileged life. I wobbled out to the carport in perilous footwear, jumped in the car and drove to work. Then I parked across the road and wobbled up to my office. Easy peasy Japanesy lemon squeezy.

In those days, practicality was a long way down the list of things I considered when buying shoes. Impressing women in the lifts was far more important.

As I’m a bit allergic to spending more than $220 on a pair of shoes, mine didn’t impressed too many people in that designer-slave building. I’d stare at the $700 Chloe stilettos on the fashion assistants and think, “Where the hell did they steal the money for those? Petty cash?” Because I know how much fashion assistants get paid and it’d be lucky to buy them a pair of thongs at Payless.

But I used to have sooooo much fun seeking out cheap, last-season treats. Some of my favourite scores were a pair of Marc Jacobs red gumboots on sale at David Jones for $50, a pair of black and silver Sigerson Morrison heels on sale for $100 in a little shop in New Orleans; and a pair of Marc Jacobs ankle boots for $90 that I bought on ebay that I think might be fakes. I’m even quite fond of the $79 pair I don’t remember buying – after cocktails – on holiday in Hawaii.

The budget for my shoes today will be pretty low. As will my expectations. I just want something low-key, black and comfy. I can’t think there will be much joy in the purchase. It’s way more buzzy slipping my feet into sexy little numbers. When my toenails are polished and my cracked heels are polished I get quite fetishy about my feet. I bend at funny angles to gaze adoringly at them in those weird, low mirrors they have in shoe shops.

When I win the lottery – no more namby-pamby “if”s – I am going to indulge my shoe fetish and buy obscene stacks of impractical shoes. Then I’m going to buy an office to wear them to. And some co-workers to impress.

Sad.

But well-shod.

PS Oh … I almost forgot to explain the vagina buffet reference! Well, a lovely woman called SJ – who describes herself as “a mum and a brazilian waxer” – contacted me yesterday about using my “Who’s my snookie wookie” blog as a guest post on her blog, which is called The Vagina Buffet (www.vaginabuffet.com). SJ owned a brazilian waxing boutique for five years and has written a book about it and other vaginal stuff. SJ and I have a mutual male friend who’s in the process of reading the book (and got us together, so to speak), he describes it as “intriguing … even for a bloke”.