Lies. All Lies. (What it’s like to be inside my head on a shopping trip)

L-A: You want to know what was not a good idea? Waiting until 9:30pm to start shoe porn (even though I told Ally that I’d do it. And I told her this yesterday), but not looking to see if you actually have shoes.  Apparently we do. From Amanda. But I can’t find them. I suck. And I’m stuck.  I thought I had content for you, instead, all I’ve got is my thoughts on Dinner for Schmucks (hillarious) and that doesn’t really work into the theme of this post. In fact, you barely saw anyone’s shoes in that  movie, so it is zero help.

But, I do have an almost amusing anecdote and some observations from my afternoon of shoe shopping. I was window shopping and caught sight of these beauts:

They were brown and they were amazing. And they zipped up over my fat calves. Except! I just found out that boots can give you a muffin top. I’m talking serious muffin top of the knee.  I don’t know if it’s because my knee is still slightly swollen from when I smacked it into the road last week or if my left leg is just plain old swollen. All I know is that when I did that boot up over my left leg, my heart broke a little bit.

Having said that, I kind of enjoy finding fault in footwear or clothing that I can’t afford. I tell myself that I’m not getting the boot because it gives me a kneecap muffin top and that it has nothing to do with the fact that I can’t afford a pair of $250 boots.  I tried on a pair of great heels, but told myself that even though I didn’t mind the slightly hookerish gold hee, I wasn’t going to spend  $70 on them because they poked into my arch funny. They did kind of poke into my arch funny. My not buying them wasn’t so much about comfort, but more to do with knowing that my husband would make frowny faces if I told him I bought shoes I can’t afford.

I do this a lot. The size isn’t right. The colour is all wrong. I’d buy it, but this detail just doesn’t suit me. Lies. All lies. I don’t buy it because I can’t afford it. I’m not sure whose benefit these lies are for. Do I want the sales lady to think I can afford it? I’m pretty sure she knows I can’t or doesn’t care. Although, I do it way more when I go into a store where I know they’d Pretty Woman you if you tried to enter looking anything less than Fabulous. I even try to hide the fact that I’m looking at the price tags, because I don’t want anyone thinking that if I have to ask, then I can’t afford it.

Or maybe I do it to fool myself. I want to have money growing on trees in my living room and exist in a world where I am ridiculously wealthy and say, “no, that Smythe jacket just isn’t me. I think I’ll pass” and mean it. I don’t want it to be code for “the money in my bank account is earmarked for food, rent, and maybe buying a coffee or an after work drink, but that’s it”.  So I come up with a million different reasons why I can’t buy something, but the reason “I can’t afford it” is never one of them. As Veronica Mars, that persnickety fictional teen detective, once said,

Oh, I am so sick of not having money. I’d be the best rich person. Seriously. I’d be the perfect combination of frivolous and sensible. Money is so wasted on the wealthy.

I really would be awesome at being rich. I am the best window shopper ever, so I can only imagine how great I’d be if I was shopping without a budget.