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Oh, the baby needs a new pair of shoes!
Come on, you seven. Roll eleven.
And she won't get 'em if you lose.
Roll eleven.
I don't know how to shoot craps. I'm always amazed at how easily people seem to absorb the arcane rules of such activities. How do you learn such things? Is there a Hoyle's for neighborhood craps games or for playing the numbers? And if I went to a casino, how would I learn to play blackjack or chemin de fer? There's a whole world out there that I know nothing about. Well, there are several such worlds. A world of worlds.
But back to the topic. I don't buy new shoes very often these days. To me, the very term "new shoes" evokes high-heeled beauties, usually black suede or red calf, that you just fall in love with and can't resist. Buying new shoes used to be like buying a slice of beauty to take home in a box. But today's shoe styles are often so ugly or so impractical that I'm not even tempted. I can walk right past the shoe stores and give the show windows only a passing glance.
In their rush to profit from a mass market, shoe company executives made the decision thirty or forty years ago to produce shoes in only one width. If your foot is not a B width, they don't want your money. Those of us with narrow feet have two choices: we can go to the high-priced specialty stores that do stock widths, or we can stop buying shoes. I've stopped buying.
My most vivid shoe-buying memory is the time I went to the big city nearest to our little town and I spent $25 on a pair of navy calfskin sling-back pumps. My father was furious at the expense. "$25 for a pair of shoes!!?"
My long narrow feet skipped a generation and landed at the end of my ten-year-old granddaughter Hannah's long legs. Her feet look just the way mine did at that age. Shopping for shoes with Hannah is like shopping for diamonds, with respect to both the rarity and the price. Some day she'll have to choose: which would you rather have, Hannah? A pair of shoes or a year at university? Mea culpa.
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