The price of beauty

The days of wearing almost whatever you want to work are officially over. Although the official communique regarding summer dress code that we received in May claimed that "relaxed casual dress", whatever that may mean, was going to apply until Labor Day, we all know better. The moment the students show back up, everyone needs to look their Sunday best. It's like visiting the in-laws, only now imagine your in-laws dressed in sagging pants, cropped tops and sneakers, while you're wearing your nices suit, and then having them wonder why you're wearing a blazer and a shirt.

Anyway, as of last Monday, there are no more capri pants, no more polo shirts, no more sandals, and definitely no more shorts. You may recall from an earlier blog that shorts were not acceptable anyway, but here in the mass communication department, we're a rebellious bunch, and so every once in a while, Steve would decide to let his legs see daylight, and show up in a pair of faded shorts. But no more. It's back to dresspants, skirts, button-downs and blazers. And as usual, after a summer of pretty much wearing whatever, I like being able to dress up again. I have only one problem, as I discovered today, and that is with wearing pumps.

You may recall that I broke my little toe sometime in March. For about six weeks, I was unable to wear anything but my lovely hot pink crocs, much to merriment of both faculty and the students. By the time the semester ended, I was able to graduate to normal shoes once again, but at this point summer had started, and so I merely migrated to sandals and flip flops.

And so today, when I decided to wear a pair of closed pumps for the first time in about five months, I realized once again how much shoes can hurt. And I mean hurt. My feet hurt so much, I am reminded of the evil stepsisters in Cinderella. No, not the endearingly clumsy ones from the sugarcoated Disney version, I'm thinking of the posivitely evil siblings from the original version, where they pretend to fit into Cinderella's shoe by cutting off their heel and their toes respectively. If there was a bird in a bush somewhere, it too would be singing about how these shoes don't fit me. I have a bandaid on both my heels, two of my toes, and still my walk resembles that of a pirate with a wooden leg. I never knew how far the walk to the bathroom actually is until now. I have the feeling that tomorrow I will be switching back to my open-toed pumps, because one, I don't think that my raw little stumps that are supposed to pass for my feet are ready for another day cooped inside very tight shoes, and two, anything slightly more comfortable is simply not allowed. I'm telling, for the country that worships the sneaker (or tennis shoe, as they say down here) on their days off, they sure are strict about their footwear at work.

The price of beauty truly is unbelievable...