Me Against the Drag Queens

Since I was in, I want to say Middle School, it's been a constant battle to find cute shoes.  I have a size 12 foot.  Until recently, the options were Men's shoes, those high top Reeboks that little old ladies where, or a shoe box.  I actually had a sales rep tell me that.  My quest for cute shoes took me down many strange paths, it forced me to settle for a size 11 for my prom, and it even lead my to a store that specialized in Drag Queen wear in Northwest Portland.  But the story I have to tell you is even better than that fateful day my mom and I wondered in the that drag queen shop and decided platform heels and ass-less chaps weren't exactly what I was looking for. 

It was the spring of 2009.  I had just bought a slough of cute new shoes from Payless.com (one of the places where you can sometimes find shoes for an amazon woman like me), including a new pair of Hot-Pink shoes.  My very favorite pair had bit the big one, and if you know me, you know I can't possibly go on with out a cute pair of pink shoes in my closet.  I had decided to take my new pink shoes their first run through at work.  I sit all day, so breaking in a pair of shoes wasn't going to be as painful as it would if I had to run around all day.

The shoes were a success.  Everyone wanted to know where I got them, or just stopped to comment.  "Those are bright!" was my favorite comment of the day, coming from the boy in our class.

Now when I say everyone was interested... I mean EVERYONE.  I had been taking the bus home, because Jason and I were sharing a car.  So on this rainy Monday I was on my way to the bench to sit down and wait for the bus when I heard:

"Excuse me miss."  I thought I'd dropped something out of my bag-- so I turned around. 

  

"Yes?" I said to the cute gay man, who was just an inch taller than me.  

"I have a weird question for you," he said.  

"Okay," I said, "Go for it."  

"I'm wondering if I could buy your shoes?" he asked.  "You see, I'm in this drag show next month, and those would really match my outfit.  Plus, they're cute as hell!"

This was it, I thought.  I've been fighting drag queens my whole life to find shoes that aren't man-shoes or old lady-shoes.  And now that I have, they're coming to me to buy them off of me.  

I honestly didn't know what to say.  I was so baffled by the question, and I didn't want to laugh it off, because he looked serious.  And if I've learned anything from RuPaul's Drag Race-- it's that you don't mess with a diva and her shoes.  So I took the honest approach.  

"I wish I could, but these are the only shoes that I have." I said.  

"Well, we can trade shoes, that way you don't have to walk home barefoot in the rain." He offered.  

Ok, now this was getting uncomfortable.  First of all, I didn't know this guy.  So why would I want to wear his smelly sneakers, that he'd been sweating in all day.  And second of all, I had just bought these shoes, so there's no way in hell that he was going to get them before I had the chance to break them in a little more.

It was then that my bus pulled up.  I told the guy I had to get home, and if he really wanted a pair of these shoes, he should go online and buy them.  It only takes a week, and then he wouldn't have to pay me $100 for them. I know I could have bought 5 more pairs of shoes for that, but you couldn't pay me enough to trade that guy shoes.  

In the end, I guess the lesson is clear-- Gay or straight, RuPaul got one thing right-- you don't stand in the way of a diva and her shoes.   And you definitely don't offer to trade-- YUCK!