Sweet Tea and Shoes

Southern women love shoes. It's part of our DNA and we've been known to buy the shoes first, then go lookin' for the outfit to go with them. After all, one cannot have a pair of gorgeous zebra print high heels and not have a single thing to go with them.

I remember my first pair of heels. I begged Mama until she finally gave in and let me use my baby sitting money to order them from the Bellas Hess Catalog. They were shiny black with little bows on the toes and Queen Anne heels which were only one inch high. My brother told me I looked like a duck with ingrown toe nails as I learned to walk in them. My sister couldn't wait four more years until she could have her own pair and my mother told me that I was starting something I would regret.

With knees that sound like popcorn doing its thing in the microwave these days, I will have to admit, Mama was right!! Some folks might blame knee surgeries on high heeled shoes but not me. They might have caused the problems but what instigated the whole mess boils down to that chart on the doctor's office.

Y'all know the one I'm talkin' about! It hangs right there for us ladies to study while we are waiting on the doctor to finally come on in our room. You look down the side and find your height then carefully (don't jump a line) go across to your ideal weight.

Yes, ma'am! That chart is the culprit. It didn't take long to figure out that if I was only a few inches taller, I would not be overweight. I did not need to diet. I needed higher heels. That meant I could go shopping as soon as the doctor's visit was over.

It worked for a few years but then suddenly, the shoe folks didn't make six inch heels. I needed stilts if I was going to be all right with that chart. I needed to be six feet two, not five feet two to be classified in the slightly overweight division.

Time to think outside the box...quite literally since that little box with the number in it was my guide. If I couldn't buy the shoes high enough and my knees were hurting, it was time to go back to flats or better yet go barefoot. I liked the latter even better than flats so I figured out a solution to that danged chart. I took my glasses off the next time I was in the doctor's office.

Could not see the chart therefore it did not control my life!

I'm safe until they get one of those horrible gadgets on the exam table that weighs a person, sends the information to the chart and gives it a voice. If it ever says, "Carolyn Brown, if you give up potatoes fried in bacon grease and never eat another Snicker bar for the rest of your life, you might be able to wear those one inch heels and be only mildly obese."

That is the day I intend to set fire to the chart. There is bail money hidden in a tin can under the frog statue in the back yard. Y'all get it and come bail me out! And bring me some real sweet tea. That stuff in the jail is the kind they make from powder and any self respecting woman standing up for her rights against a lying chart would gag on it.