uh-oh...

I have a story to tell. Yes, I do have a million things to do (and I know you do too) but this is a good story.

Remember last week, when I took Alfredo to the Christmas Spectacular? Well, I didn't really want to dwell on the bad parts (or even mention them) but now I will. It's important to the story.

First, I wore these beautiful shoes...



(Important thing to know for later)

The timing of the whole Christmas Spectacular was a little problematic. At 4:00 in the afternoon, it meant waking Alfredo up from his much-needed afternoon nap. Unsuccessfully, I tried to get him down early for the nap. He finally went to sleep just a little while before I would need to wake him up to get ready to go. Reluctant to do so, I pushed it until the last possible moment...waking, dressing, and putting him in the car in record time.

We would have made it on time, perhaps, if a car along the way hadn't stalled, blocking traffic for miles.

But maybe not...there were thousands of cars piling into the parking lot and there were not nearly enough spaces. I finally found a space, looked at the time...4:05! To make matters worse, I had dressed Alfredo in his Santa suit (over his clothes) and his coat didn't fit over it. I hadn't really thought it would be a problem because 1. I didn't realize how very cold it was 2. I didn't know that I'd have to park about a mile from the place.

So, you can see, the whole thing started a little shaky. Picture me, all dressed up, carrying a pint-sized santa, RUNNING to get to the performance.

Then, once we got there, I had the unpleasant discovery that Row X, Seats 6 & 7 were not worth the combined $100 that I paid. Not by a long shot. To make matters worse (didn't I say that already...it's a theme) the lady at the end of Row X refused to let us in. And it was the only way to get to our seats.

Still carrying 30 lb Santa, I climbed up the next few rows to Row Z (the top of the whole stadium!) to two empty seats. We watched happily for 10 minutes until the owners of those fine seats arrived. Booted from the seats we were squatting, and not willing to face the bully on the seat at the end of Row X, I carefully descended the 26 rows of dimly lit and awkward stairs without rails to talk it all over with the first official looking person I could find. I asked said official looking person if we couldn't just please stand right there at the entrance and watch Santa and his reindeer prance around. Please?

Evidently not. It was a fire code violation. Of course it was.

This official looking person offered that I could go to the information booth, halfway around the outside of the performance, to request better seats. Even though the lady there berated me for five minutes about buying cheap seats (???!!!) she offered me what she referred to as better seats.

Having missed a huge chunk of the show arranging these better seats, we arrived at them to find that, while not as far up, they were probably the worst seats in the house. They were flush with the stage. So, while Alfredo could certainly get a good appreciation from this vantage of the high kicks of the beautiful ladies, they were in no way better seats.

When the show ended, I carried little Santa back to the car, spilled the popcorn all over the car, got lost and arrived home exhausted.

And when I looked down at my beautiful shoes, I had managed to lose the bottom part of the heel.



The sad state of my beautiful shoes nearly did me in.

As a whim, I contacted the company, Oh! Shoes, to ask if they might be able to repair my sad shoe.

Here's the best part of the story...and after that story, don't you need it?

The owner of Oh! Shoes just called me. The owner! And he is sending me a brand new beautiful pair of shoes. Did I mention that they are the most comfortable shoes ever? That they were designed by a team of chiropractors, foot surgeons, and countless other experts to be the most comfortable shoes ever...

And she lived happily ever after.