Stars! They're not like Us!

Not too long ago, I was strolling through Shoe Carnival when I came across an adult woman and her mother. I assume they were related. In my mind they were. The mother was uncertain about a pair of shoes the daughter kept pushing at her.

"They're just like the ones you have on, except they have a slightly higher heel. God."

The mother seemed nervous about disagreeing with this opinion. "What would I wear them with?"

"You would wear them," the daughter said, continuing in the key of DUH, "with pants like those. Or your black skirt. Or pretty much anything you own. They're black shoes."

The tone was so whiny, so rudely mean, I had to get away from them. I couldn't take it anymore. I don't particularly love shopping anyway, but the thing that makes it worse? OTHER PEOPLE. People who walk slowly, touching every item they see. People who bump into you or act like you're the one walking too slow, when in fact you are locomoting at a perfectly reasonable pace. People who talk to their mousy mothers as if they are stupid, and not the person who fed them rice cereal and taught them to clap their hands and read books and comforted them when they were sad and...oh, lightbulb! aha! eureka! I see where this reaction is coming from. Might just have something to do with the extra dollop of estrogen coursing through my veins.

Anyway. Later, mimicking the shoe store scene for my husband, complete with parental disrespect, he asked, "Are the Kardashians in Indianapolis?"

Which made me think: I bet no Kardashian has ever set foot in a Shoe Carnival. And the thought of one of them, any of them, watching the Bargain Wheel spin 'round and 'round cracked me up for a good long while.

My local Shoe Carnival, or as we called it, the Shoe Zoo, used to be located by a Denny's, where we youths would loiter for hours on end, spending something like $3.99 apiece for a Grand Slam breakfast at midnight. The Shoe Zoo has since moved down the street to a larger location, near a Perkins Restaurant. They always kicked us out of Perkins after a certain amount of time. Like, an hour.

Shoe Zoo, Denny's and Perkins: all star-free zones.

Stars! They're Not Like Us!