Bennie's

My poor feet are a mess of healing blisters, blisters, scabs and bruised toes from running errands in dress shoes for work at a law office and running on hills in my year-old running shoes at night. A few weeks back, as I wandered through the woods barefooted to ease the pain, my daughter Anna Maria said, "Mom, you really need to go to a good shoe store and buy two or three pairs of really good shoes. They might cost $100 a piece, but ..."

I knew she was right. She learned that piece of advice from me and her dad. But being on a very low income for the last several years, the only expensive shoes I've bought were my running shoes.

But a co-worker has repeatedly said the same thing (I have a nasty habit of wandering around the office in stockinged feet).

So yesterday I visited Bennie's. I walked into the store and said, "Please can you find me a pair of shoes that won't hurt my feet." And then I showed her what she had to work with. A bit embarrased, I added, "There are no open wounds at the moment, so there's no danger of me getting germs on the shoes I try on."

The clerk's personal favorite was Dansko's (at more than $100 a piece), but the store also had Naturalizers, Hush Puppies, Clark's and several styles of Naot's, a delightful cork sandle made in Israel.

She found a couple nylon anklets and let me try on several pairs of shoes. Some pinched my already sore upper foot, over the high arch. Some pinched the blisters and bunyons. Some were too sloppy. But there were no other customers waiting and she said, "I have all afternoon."

She suggested a pair of Naturalizers. "Many office workers like these," she said.

I thought they looked like ugly "old-lady" shoes, but keeping my thoughts to myself and being desperate, I tried them on anyway. The stretchy front upper molded comfortably around my mishapen forefoot, and the leather backs conformed nicely to my narrow heel. And, once on, they looked fine. Quite dressy, actually. "Ummm, this IS nice," I said as I wandered around the store with extremely happy feet.

I bought two -- one in natural and one in black. And the Naot sandles -- one style pinched my upper, one was sloppy, but the third...Ooohhh, it, too, was sure nice. The cork sole was the same shape as the bottom of my foot, yet soft enough to be comfortable. I bought that one, too.

And then, outside, there was a pair of Hush Puppies that I bought, on sale, for $30 -- mostly because I had a pair of them once and loved them, and they didn't even have a hint of "old-ladyness" about them. The excuse I gave, "I'll save these for days when I know I have a lot of important meetings."

And the four pairs of shoes came to about $250. So I asked her to order a new pair of running shoes as well. Oh...and an added bonus. All of these can be repaired, right at the store where I bought them in the first place.