heels Soma Wheelchair user privilege is being able to wear the fanciest, tallest heels you want without having to worry about walking in them. 240115 ... ovenbird In what was, perhaps, the most humiliating shoe shopping experience of my life, I realized, at the age of forty-two, that I am officially too old to wear heels. I have an event coming up that requires formal wear. I bought a dress but didn’t have any shoes to go with it, so I dragged my pathetic boot wearing self to the outlet mall and tried on at least nine different pairs of shoes. I started with crystal encrusted stilettos. I was being overly ambitious. I admit that now. I crushed my feet into the pointed toe, stood up and immediately knew that I could not wear those shoes, even for a second. The very kind and helpful salesperson brought me progressively tamer shoes. A modest pump (that felt like it was cutting through the tendons on the top of my foot); an open toed shoe with an ankle strap (that felt like piano wire); a square toed t-strap patent leather block heel that looked cute but would have given me seventy two blisters in under a minute. “I don’t really wear heels,” I admitted to the salesperson. “Oh,” she said. “Well, good for you for trying!” She spoke to me the way a nurse would speak to a ninety year old with dementia. As I was sitting there surrounded by boxes and tissue paper and mortification the salesperson disappeared to the back room to grab a shoe for someone else. While she was back there I escaped, leaving the detritus of my embarrassment behind. After failing similarly at a few more stores I found myself trying on champagne running shoes covered in sequins with satin details and a sheer ribbon in place of laces. I loved them. I could have walked for miles. I had a moment of self doubt in which I decided that I couldn’t buy them because they would look stupid and people would think I was weird. Then my membership in the “We Do Not Care Club” (check out Melani Sanders on Instagram) kicked in, and I bought the shoes. They’re like a grown up pair of bejeweled Skechers, and I always did envy my daughter for being able to wear shoes covered in sparkles and bows. I smiled as I left the mall confident that if this upcoming party sucks I will have the power to run far and fast and stylishly to the nearest library to hide in the stacks where I belong. 251107 what's it to you? who go blather from