... so why not flaunt the talent I've got? Yesterday my mother and I went to the store with a friend of mine to do a little bit of discount shopping; this time of year, you usually get really good prices on things and I've needed to update my wardrobe for some time.

Well, I was complaining about how I didn't have very many pairs of shoes. I'm not normally a shoe gal. Generally, I have only one or two pairs and all I will wear are flip-flops and flats because I believe in the benefits of walking as bare-footed as possible (without suffering from tetanus because some bastard has put God knows what on the floor), but if I am not wearing something so flat that I can bend it in half, I am wearing high heels.

It's quite a contrast, I know, but I enjoy high heels, and at any rate, I am so short that it is almost necessary for me to wear them in order to avoid destroying the bottoms of nice, "professional" pants. Of course, sometimes I just enjoy walking in ridiculous heels because they seem to be going out of vogue where I live, and many girls don't know how to walk in them properly any more. (Due to a foot injury a few years ago, I had to affect a new way of walking, one that didn't hurt my feet, and one that, incidentally, comes in handy when walking in heels.)

Anyway, back to the store. So I have been complaining that I don't have many shoes, but my main problem is with heels. I began telling in gruesome detail a story that I knew would wrench my materialistic mother's heart: a story of what DC does to heels and why my old pair was trash. So she tells me to get another pair, as they're all on sale.

I pick out the tallest, most ho-baggish heels I can find. It's not that I want to look like a prostitute, it's just that, for me, the taller the better in terms of shock value. So we get in line to check out with our various things, tormenting my gay uncle, who was also present, and my friend remarks, "Why would you get such UGLY shoes?"

I didn't consider them ugly, but it was so funny to see the looks on everyone's faces in that store when I yelled at the top of my lungs, "If you can walk in four-inch hooker heels, why not flaunt the talent you've got?" I mean, seriously, why not? What is so wrong with me enjoying the shock value of women seeing me in tall heels and going, "Oh my God, how can you manage to walk in those?"

So what if I wear shoes that look like something I pulled off of a stripper? What is so wrong with wearing shoes that are purposely making me a spectacle?

On a brighter note, the looks on women's faces are even more intensified when they take their eyes off of my stripper heels and look at the rest of what I am wearing; I'm naturally curvy and petite, and usually I'd be wearing TASTEFUL, yet flattering, clothing for my figure, not at all are stripper-ish / ho-baggish as my shoes would suggest.

Even so, I do enjoy the occasional, "HOW ON EARTH DO YOU WALK IN THAT?!?!?!?!"

The moral of this story? I can walk in four-inch stripper heels, and it is a skill that I think every woman should learn, but it doesn't make me a hooker.