The shoe sale

Every year, Footprints has an annual warehouse sale in Lawrence, Kansas. Birkenstocks consist of about 90 % of my footwear and have since college (no, I’m not a lesbian), so this is a sale that I look forward to for months in advance.

Saturday was the big day, so we drug the kids out of bed, shoved Nutrigrain bars and milk at them and headed off to Lawrence (about 45 minutes away), but still didn’t arrive until 10:30. You really need to get there at the crack of dawn to get the good shoes, but it was impossible to make it there that early with children, so by the time we got there, it was very picked over.

Imagine a huge warehouse, filled with people shoving each other out of the way to get to an area with a bunch of shoes somewhere around their size and grabbing boxes. After you manage to snag a few boxes, you try to find a place to sit so you can actually try the shoes on. It’s fabulous! And at 10:30, it was still pretty damn crowded with people.

This year, I decided to make a serious fashion switch. Instead of Birkenstocks, I went for the Keens. After elbowing, shoving and grabbing, I got myself a really cute pair of tennis shoes at half off.

And so did Eric.

He went outside to wait with the kids while I paid because they were getting a little antsy. Georgia started “the holler.” I don’t even know how to describe “the holler.” She barely opens her mouth, gets a very determined look on her face and emits a very high-pitched tone. It almost sounds like the Emergency Broadcasting System tone. Loud, shrill and extremely annoying. She’s not mad when she does it and she’s not crying, but she knows it gets a reaction. In this case, the reaction was a warehouse full of people looking around for the baby alarm while I was trying unsuccessfully to shove a paci in her mouth. We all know how much I enjoy hundreds of eyes focused on me and my children, so I sent Eric out the door with the kids.

After I waited in line and warded off the line cutters, I exited the warehouse, and Eric looked at me and gasped. “What happened to your hand?” I looked down, and my hand was mysteriously bloodied. Huh. I have absolutely no recollection of how that happened. But the way I figure it, if you leave a shoe sale bloodied and with a good pair of shoes, it was a success.

Before heading home, we stopped at Spangles and Dunkin Donuts – two treats we don’t have in Kansas City. You all may remember how much I enjoy Munchkins. *drool* Then we drove back to KC while basking in the glory of our shoe triumph. It was a great day.