Shoes...

I went into Nordstrom today to buy my birthday perfume. The whole store is a trap. When you walk in you can hear piano music gently playing in the background and instantly you are surrounded by hundreds of beautiful shoes being sold by beautiful men and women. I'm trying to stay on task but my feet hurt from my regular shoes. The sole has started to peel off the bottom and they pinch my baby toe. I thought maybe I'd try on a pair of pumps. Nordstrom is the only store that sells fabulous shoes for women with long beautiful feet like mine. Other stores carry large sizes but usually they look like someone just took the box to a normal shoe, punched some holes in them and threaded them with string! Viola! These shoes were perfect. The heel was the perfect height and width. They were made of leather and it felt like I had just placed my foot into a bed of silk and roses. When I walked in them, it was like walking in a nice pair of athletic shoes. I sat there for 15 minutes and stared at those shoes. The "flesh" colored stockings looked strange against my brown skin but all the same I enjoyed having them on my feet. I could buy these shoes or pay my electric bill. The sales lady didn't use high pressured sales tactics but kept reassuring me that these would be shoes I could wear everyday. It's an investment to buy a good shoes. It's something you're going to wear almost everyday. It's a good work pump. I agreed with her. I feel like if I'm going to go to work everyday I atleast deserve to have a nice pair of shoes to do it in! I also know that I still have to pay 500 dollars in bills and my account is already in the red.

A few minutes earlier I'd been at Sears smiling prettily as I convinced the salesperson to tighten the battery cables on my car for free. Some mornings my car doesn't start and I finally got sick of getting my hands dirty trying to adjust the cables that I decided to take advantage of the warranty. The salesman at Sears asked for my number and offered to fix everything else on my car for free... Only he couldn't do it there at the store, I would have to come to his house. (nudge nudge wink wink)

After staring at those shoes on my feet for close to twenty minutes I decided to take them off, place them back in the box and tell the sales lady that I wouldn't be able to make a purchase today. It simply was'nt in my budget. I couldn't help but to think about the business card in my purse with the knowledge that the name and number written on the back of that card would happily buy me those shoes just to win my affection. I thought about how easy it would be to accept a gift like that from a stranger by exploiting the fact that it was my birthday. I thought about how wrong it would be to lead someone on and have them figure out a few months later that I am, in fact, emotionally unavailable. Once I get the job, I'll buy the shoes as a reward. First I need to get through the interview. What if they think my stuff looks too hacky? What if they ask me questions I don't know the answers to? What if I get in there and my mind goes blank and I break out in a cold sweat? What if I ramble on and talk to much? What if my portfolio looks too cheap? What if I walk through the door and there's a line of people interviewing for the same position? What if I get the job and screw everything up later and get fired? What if I chickened out and decided to stay at my current job for the stability only to regret it later because I never took the chance?