Manny was looking for a gift for his wife’s birthday. He had no idea what to get her. He wanted to get something different from the roses, or perfume that he usually got her. He just didn’t know what. He just wasn’t good at this sort of thing. He didn’t have much of an imagination.
He had gone out to the mall, hoping it would give him a few ideas. He had been walking around for almost an hour, and still he had no ideas on what to get. All of a sudden, they almost hit him smack in the face. He was walking past the “I’d Love To Be In Your Shoe” store, and there they were, sitting right there in the window.
A pair of red stiletto’s. He thought to himself, “Annie would love these.” He went inside to take a look at them, and a few minutes later, he walked out of the store with a pair of red stilettos.
Annie loved them. She wore them many times, when they would go out. As the years went by though, because of back and hip issues, she had to stop wearing them, or any kind of shoe with much of a heel.
The shoes were still in great condition though, so she donated them to a thrift store, in the hopes that someone else would get good use out of them.
Well, the shoes sat in the thrift store for about a month, until Wendy saw them, while making her monthly thrift store visit. She thought they would go great with her daughter’s prom dress, and they were in such fantastic condition too.
Wendy bought the shoes, and just as she thought, her daughter, Tanya, loved them. She agreed that they would go perfectly with her prom dress. She wore them to her prom, and received a lot of compliments.
Over the next several years, she got a lot of use out of them. As time passed by though, the shoes became a casualty of the, “I have so many shoes, I don’t know what to do,” syndrome. This time, they were off to the Goodwill. They were still in surprisingly good condition.
They stayed at Goodwill for exactly two weeks. That’s when Antonio saw them. Antonio was an artist, and he thought the shoes would be a perfect subject for a painting he was doing, so he bought them. He did a fantastic painting of the shoes. He titled the painting, A Woman’s Pain. This was due to the fact that many women would complain about how much wearing heels like that would hurt their feet, and back, over time.
After he finished the painting, he mounted the shoes on a piece of wood, and included it in an art exhibit he was doing, exploring why individuals utilize clothing as a visible manifestation of their self-concept, projecting their identity and values onto the external world through sartorial choices, thus engaging in a performative act of self-presentation within the social sphere. In other words, why do people wear the things that they wear. This is where the shoes find their home, even to this very day.