- Beginners
- People who wished they were at Alpental, buy hey, snow is snow and they'll take what they can get.
When we were driving home, I asked her if I should buy a $400 pair of Prada shoes. In my last post, I wondered what advice I would give her. Now I was curious to hear what advice she would give me. I didn't explain the whole middle-aged, pre-empty-nest and pre-empty bank account syndrome that I am experiencing. Instead, I asked the question straight: Should I buy a $400 pair of Prada shoes?
I partially expected her to freak out, and say you want to spend how much on shoes before I could go to college? That would buy a quarters worth of textbooks! And then she would cry. This morning before we left for skiing, she lost her shit when I suggested taking her out to dinner on Dec. 15 in honor of her getting her first college response--good or bad. We would celebrate her applying to college.
She exploded into tears. "How can you say that? Don't you know how stressful this is for me?"
(Me silently thinking: Yeah. That's why I offered to treat you to dinner...)
"I am going to my room to cry by myself," she said and stormed off.
I was expecting something like that when I asked about the shoes. Instead, I got an in-depth analysis.
"What do they look like?"
"Velvet Mary Janes," she said.
"Nice," she said. Even without a picture, she approved of the style. "What color?"
"They have the style in blue, purple or red."
"Burgundy red or red red?"
"Burgundy."
"Brown burgundy or red burgundy?" she asked. I had to think about it. "More brown, I suppose. They aren't really all that red."
"How high is the heel?" she asked.
"Two and a half inches," I said.
"Mid-height," she said. "That's good. How often would you wear them?" she asked. "If you wear them ten times, that is $40 a time. If you wear them 100 times, that is $4 a time."
"I am planning to wear them at work," I said.
"You would wear Prada to work? Isn't where you work super casual?" she asked.
"I don't care. They can wear what they want. I'll wear what I want."
"Seriously? Don't people where you work wear t-shirts and ripped jeans?" she asked.
[Editor's Note: I am skipping the sidebar conversation on ripped jeans.]
"What would you wear it with?" she asked.
"I don't know. Black skirts, likely," she said.
"You could wear the blue ones with your Jawa dress," she said. "If you wear blue shoes with black, you will need to wear a blue scarf or blouse or something. Blue shoes with black clothes otherwise doesn't go together."
[Editor's Note: I am skipping the item by item of discussion of clothes in my closet that could be worn with different colors.]
"The blue or red are probably the safest bet. I'd skip the purple," she said.
"Should I get a pair, or ___" I asked, waiting to see how she would fill in that blank.
"Christmas is coming up," she said. "You could get yourself the shoes as a Christmas present."
What is my take-away from this conversation? The conversation wasn't
- Philosophical--why should I spend that much on shoes when there are homeless people in Seattle? or,
- An analysis of my budget or whether or not I could afford the shoes, or
- An analysis of the practicality of buying luxury goods versus spending that money on something other than shoes.
The question before the court of Claire-Adele was "Should I buy a $400 pair of Prada shoes?" Her analysis considered something I had thought about but not as my primary question: Are these the right shoes on which to spend $400? In some bizarre way, I was proud of her. She was not going to be an impulse shopper, letting her emotions take over her decision making. I was impressed.
When we got home, she looked online at the shoes I was considering.
"The blue ones are nice," she said. "And those silver Mary Janes would look great with my Winter Ball dress."
Yes, yes they would. And the real reason to keep Mom actively engaged in a conversation about shoes became apparent.
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