I can’t remember my first favourite pair of shoes. As a
child of the eighties, it might have been a tossup between jelly sandals (awful
rubbery rubbing-your-heels-to-flesh summer shoes) and Bubblegummers (A
ridiculously garish pair of royal blue sneakers with bright laces and assorted
coloured eyelets).
What I do remember is that feeling of absolute glee and
excitement when I got something new and being so eager to wear them that I
couldn’t sleep that night. And bless our Miss 5’s little heart, she’s the same,
if not more excitable.
These, are $8 shoes from Kmart. Eight dollars I’d spend
three times more to replicate how happy they have made Lucy.
Pink frilled shoes with floral inserts, that’s a trifecta for
a girly girl like Lucy. The fact that Daddy Cool is happy with the
before-harvest price tag, or that I was pleased to have found something
suitable for a majority of her outfits in her size is moot, she only cares that
she has new pretty pink shoes.
And how do you test the magnificence of such shoes? You put them on and go and stand in front of the mirror and dance to
Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’, that’s how! (Well that’s how Lucy tested them, and it
seemed to work because I got at least $8 worth of entertainment just from
watching her, and she was pleased with how ‘dancy’ they were).
Daddy Cool should enjoy this purchase, relish it even. I can
only imagine the price tag and the devotion for shoes will only increase with
age. As will the desire for cosmetics, handbags and new outfits. One day, shoes will be expressly for vanity,
but at 5 years old, they’re so much more than that to Lucy. They are transportation
devices to imagined worlds. Worlds where there are dance parties, fairies and
magical wonders that only children can conger up. All this happiness for only
eight dollars. I’ve hit some sort of budgetary jackpot – sign me up for ten
more pairs!
