Shoe Mission: Impossible

The other day I went searching for shoes to wear with my bridesmaid dress for Lindsey's wedding. Oye! I set off on the road with no idea where I'd even begin looking. I mean, if hip-length waders would match the dress, I'd be all set.

This is the dress I'm wearing:

And this is the color of the dress:


I found a "mall." in Soldotna. If anyone has ever been to the "mall" in Billerica, MA where the K-mart is, then you know what I mean when I put quotes around the word mall. It's like a defunct mall with room for about 6 stores (mostly small weird stores) and only half of it is occupied. It's like a ghost town mall. This one happened to have a Payless shoe store there. Unfortunately, they didn't have ANY shoes that would remotely work.

Next up was Gottschalks. It was my first time in - it's apparently where the entire Kenai Peninsula has to shop for department store items - you know, like clothes that aren't Realtree print and shoes that aren't made to be planted at the bottom of a river for hours as you cast over and over and over trying to land the big one. I'm not exaggerating when I say it's the only place aside from thrift shops that you can find this sort of shopping. The shoe selection was pitiful. It was all clunky leather sandals. There were about two pairs of shoes that might pass as dressy, but they were all wrong for the dress I needed to match. Wrong, meaning one pair was red and the other pair looked appropriate for a hooker. I asked the girl at the register if they have shoes on the Kenai Peninsula. She gave me a look that wasn't reassuring and told me I'd be better off going to Anchorage. She then said I might try a bridal shop, which happened to be right near where I live.

I go to the bridal shop. They had about 10 pairs to choose from:

There were the clear plastic ones with a dash of rhinestones to look like a little strap. Not only are they hideous, but the clear part isn't making it look like you're wearing a strappy shoe, it makes it look like you're too wimpy to suck it up and wear strappy shoes and it makes me think of how sweaty your feet must be under that oh so obvious plastic. Let's keep the PVC out of wearable items, please. The shoe below is almost exactly what I saw there:


There were also several pairs of white dyeable shoes. Have you ever looked at bridal shoes? they're all awkward and always seem like they're a couple of generations late fashion-wise. No thanks. Plus, I'm not about to go mixing up a batch of dye. I'm just not.

Even if I wanted any of these shoes, I couldn't have them. Their entire stock was on the floor, which amounted to a few sizes for each shoe type. So, what was left? Well, there were the flat sandals that belonged on a belly dancer. There was more junk hanging off of the many straps of those shoes. I couldn't even untangle them, nevermind fathom trying them on. Then there were the gold ones, which won't work with the dress. The dress requires a grey or possibly silver shoe.

This left just one pair (they happened to be on sale, which is nice, because despite being ugly as a rule, shoes in bridal shops are usually expensive). The shoes aren't hideous, but they definitely wouldn't have been my first choice. They've got one of those ankle straps that wrap around a few times and travel up your leg a bit. So not me. There's just one issue. . .I'm a size 9, sometimes a 9.5. They had an 8.5 and a 10. I ended up buying a shoe that's one size too big for me because it was the ONLY shoe on the Kenai Peninsula that remotely fit my needs. I will laugh every time I see those shoes. I'll also laugh when I fall while walking down the aisle at the wedding and profusely apologize to the people sitting near my landing site, saying, "I'm so sorry, I got these shoes in Alaska," as if they should understand why that explains my faulty shoes.

They just don't deal in dressy shoes on the Kenai Peninsula. Period.