I shoe-shoe-shoes you

a transcript of our trip to the macy's men's shoe department to get sean shoes:

me: how bout these?
him: yeah (does not pick up shoes)
me: how bout those?
him: yeah (does not pick up shoes)
me: what about these?
him: yeah (does not pick up shoes)
bella: AIIIIYYAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRARAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

we did look at all the kenneth cole shoes. and he found a pair that he liked, which I didn't love because they had lugged soles so that they weren't really as dressy as regular dress shoes, which I thought was the point. (I likened this to buying really expensive dressy jeans - they're still jeans at the end of the day.)

so he was all set to buy these shoes, after having tried on just that one pair. I kept asking if he wanted to try more, and he said no - mostly because bella was screaming her head off, wanting to crawl around on the nasty carpet. (don't they fucking VACUUM??) a shiny shoe horn wouldn't even calm her down. and he was annoyed further by the shoes themselves - the way they lace the shoes in the display so the laces go straight across and you can neither loosen or tighten them. I had to re-lace them while he wrestled with bella, but the sheer fact that they were laced that way was baffling and annoying to him. so, with all the chaos and the laces and whatnot, he didn't want to try on any more shoes.

however, I happened to be looking at the clearance rack, where they had several shoes in sean's size. (sidenote: in case I haven't mentioned it, sean has ENORMOUS feet. he wears either a 12 or 13 depending on the shoe. have you ever noticed that shoes are always alot cuter when they're little? the bigger they are, the weirder they look. especially shoes that have only a small lace up area, like dress shoes. they don't seem to make the lace up part any bigger after, say, size 10, so there's always this little lace up part and this vast expanse of shoe stretching out for miles. so buying shoes for him is tough, as you have to get the right balance of correct size and non-clownishness.) I saw a pair that were really cool looking and had, dun dun dunnnnn, NO LACES. I asked him to at least just try these on, and he did, and he said they were really comfortable. when I looked to see what the brand name was (not that either of us cared, we only cared that he had nice dress shoes that fit him) and it was steve madden. awwww. now we have the same brand of shoes.

I'm not sure if he wore them today or not, but we even got him all kinds of new socks to go with his new shoes. (I picked them out - argyle, striped, and polka dot. I'm so glad he's not picky about the kind of socks he wears.) I'll make sure he gives a shoe report so all of you who are DYING to know "do they fit????? are they comfortable????? DO THEY MAKE YOUR SOCKS PILL????" will have the answers you so desperately need.

the best part? clearance is 50% off the lowest marked price. $130 shoes for $37? not bad at all.