Boring post No. 342

I have a terrible problem with shoes.

I can never find any I like, but when I do, I wear them to death until they wear out and then I have to start the cycle all over again. Like paying taxi drivers, having my haircut and sunbathing, it's one of life's little agonies.

The discovery that you could buy shoes from Amazon - which meant never having to enter a shoe shop ever again was a revelation. I hate shoe shops. In the main, the staff are mentally sub-normal, unhelpful and rude. And they rarely have what you want.

Only recently I went into some anonymous store at London shopping Mecca Westfield and asked to try on a shoe I decided I liked after having spent what seemed like hours weighing up its pros and cons, only for the girl to say they didn't have it stock. I went back again a few weeks later for the same shoe to be told the same thing. So why, I inquired, did they still have it out on the shelf? It's old stock, she told me, and they weren't ordering anymore in.

So why were they still there then, I exploded. She shrugged and didn't speak, the usual reaction these days if you dare to question shop policy. They're either to thick to think of an answer, don't know the answer or don't care. Probably all three.

The Amazon thing, like buying anything wearable online, has its flaws. Sometimes the shoe is not what it seems. I bought three pairs, and am currently wearing one of those pairs into the ground.

So I braved Office in Camden High Street last week, knowing I might look like someone's dad, but what the hey - it's that or go barefoot. And I did find a boot I liked so without having to ask the tattooed 16-year-ld skinny jean/Ramone-t-shirted assistant, who was busy frugging wildly with a willowy black woman in a midriff top, I just hoped it might be my size and put it on. And it was. So all I had to do was ask for the other one, cough up, and off I'd go. Now that's better.

I have a big self-confidence issue in clothes shops. The days when it was you and three assistants who smirked at you from behind the counter, or exchanged glances while one folded jumpers and the others fiddled about behind the till have thankfully gone, but they still haunt me. I like clothes but I hate shopping for them unless I'm feeling particularly bold or more likely, I've seen something, so I just dash in and buy it. I only try on trousers, nothing else. A swift exit is necessary. That said, my money's as good as anyone else's. In fact it's better than anyone else's.

Anyway, I've now got three pairs of shoes/boots and that'll do me until the New Year. I can breathe again.

That was fascinating wasn't it?