A Team Effort

            It took a team effort today to buy Mom a new pair of shoes. It was a big event that I’d thought about trying ever since her move to Asheville but I wasn’t sure if we could pull it off.

  Mom has just one pair of slip on brown shoes and one pair of sandals after a lifetime of a closet full of stylish shoes. True… she doesn’t go out anywhere anymore, but looking at her scuffed and worn brown pair makes me sad.  I often asked “are those shoes still comfortable?” remembering how we had bought them at least five years ago. Last week when we were outdoors walking, she said “they feel all lumpy underneath now”.  That was when I decided we needed to take action and get her to the Discount Shoe Store… pronto.

We just happen to live on the southwest side of town near what is the best deal in Asheville - the Discount Shoe Store. It has become not only a place we go to buy shoes, but is now on our “tour” of Asheville when friends and family come to visit.  I didn’t realize this store was so unusual until Jessica went wild last New Year’s and came home with three super stylish pairs of boots and shoes.  A few months later, our friend Brenda stopped by for a few days visit and I found myself taking her to the shoe store after the Biltmore Estate.  She came out with four shoes boxes piled high absolutely delighted with her purchases.

The Discount Shoe store is a large ugly warehouse with concrete floors, rustic shelves that hold hundreds of boxes of name brand shoes.  Between aisles you are lucky if you can find a hard metal chair to sit on and it’s self-service.  People come from neighboring South Carolina, Tennessee and all of Western North Carolina to shop here, and the parking lot is packed on weekends. Whoever owns this store is sitting on a gold mine.

I described the set up to Mom, got Art to agree to go, and figured it was worth a try if we all did it together.  I was the chauffeur and pulled up in front of the handicapped ramp while Art got out, set up the walker and held onto Mom while I parked. Once inside, I lead the way past the athletic shoes, to the women’s dress shoe area.  I grabbed two chairs, parked Mom in one and Art in the other.  I began my foray up and down the aisles piling up the shoeboxes with possibilities and ferrying them over to Art.  He, very efficiently, unpacked each shoe and fitted them on Mom as if he’d been selling shoes all his life.  If Mom did not like the fit before she even stood up she’d take them off and try the next pair.  Some styles seemed to fit and Art would help her up, get her walker and have her walk a few steps.  Then she’d shake her head and say “no”.  Meanwhile, I continued up and down the aisles bringing more shoes as the pile of rejects grew.

On one of my trips back I found Mom staring across the aisle at two teenaged girls trying on black suede platform 6-inch heels and giggling because they could not take a step without pitching forward.  Mom began to laugh right along with the girls and I suddenly remembered playing dress up with my girlfriends trying on Mom’s old high heels.

We had a pretty good relay going but were getting to the bottom of the pile of shoeboxes when I set off in a different direction towards the more expensive European soft leather shoes.  I came back with some German made Riekers, which Mom put on, stood up in, and suddenly declared they were comfortable.  Success!

Mom put on her new shoes as soon as she got back to her room and she had a big grin on her face when we said good-bye.  What had seemed like a daunting task wasn’t as difficult as I had imagined.  It just took a team effort to pull it off.  Somehow it felt like we’d crossed the finish line…Touchdown!