For our anniversary, Alex bought tickets to see the Blue Man Group at the new opera house here in Dallas. We went on Thursday. We got home from work and laid around for about an hour, dropped the dog off at the sitter’s (AKA Jesse and Diane’s), and drove downtown. Before we left, Alex asked me what he should wear. I told him, “Oh, you have to at least wear slacks. I mean, this is high brow! It’s at an opera house, for goodness sake!” I wore a white cocktail dress that appears to be made of couch material from the 60s and these neat royal blue shoes that I got at Goodwill in Abilene. 

(Sidenote: Some of you might think “Shoes from Goodwill? Disgusting!” but I have worn shoes from Goodwill since at least high school and I’ve never gotten a foot fungus. My immediate family shops there almost weekly and my dad euphemistically calls it “Neiman Marcus.”)

Anyway, I was looking fine in my get up and Alex looked nice too. So we found a parking lot downtown that was only $4 and walked over to Plaza to the Americas to eat dinner. About a block from the parking lot, I noticed that my shoe had started flopping. I looked down and the entire sole was coming off. I tried to finagle (ooh, good word!) it with a bobby pin and a hair band but it didn’t work so I just ripped the whole sole off. (see picture below)

So, then I just had a thin piece of leather separating my foot from any nails or hypodermic needles laying on the street. And I was lopsided, to boot. I gimped around and we ate at a nasty Mexican food bar place cause the food court was closed but it was fun! 

Then we started on our way to the opera house. As we got closer, I noticed that even though we were dressed up “fancy” for us, we were still a little underdressed. And I felt even more underdressed with my gimpy shoe. When we crossed the street, I noticed my other shoe had started flopping. I was mortified that I had bought such crappy shoes and chosen to wear them to a fancy event. I ripped the sole off the second gimpy shoe, threw it in the trash, and tried to keep from laughing too hard. As we walked in, a woman came in and grabbed my shoulder. She said, “Excuse me, but I think you lost a part your shoe out there.” Yes, I had lost a third part of my shoe. I grabbed the woman’s shoulder (which appears to be a new thing I do to strangers) and thanked her. Then I fell out the door laughing to go retrieve a piece of my outfit. Alex almost had to slap me (not really) to get me under control because I was a little hysterical. 

What a trash monkey.

I thought I was cool, but I was quickly reminded that I am not. Yay for good humiliating stories!

When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. Proverbs 11:2

PS- What happened to the shoes when we got home?