One Sunday last month we had plans to visit our friends’ church in north Dallas, then go to lunch with them. I put on my dressy black pants with a pretty-but-not-too-fussy blouse and blingy earrings.

Since I was going to make pancakes before church and also do a good bit of walking after, I decided not to put on my black leather shoes just yet. They’re low heeled, but don’t have a comfy wide toe area like my customary canvas Toms. I’d wear a pair of Toms now, and change when it was time to leave.

Afraid I might forget to change shoes, I slipped on my fuzzy, super comfy, multi-color striped ones. They look hideous with black dress pants. No way I wouldn’t notice them and remember to change.

For added insurance, I told Brent, “Don’t let me leave the house in these shoes, okay?”

“Okay.”

After pancakes, juice, and coffee, it was time to finish getting ready.

The church is about a 40-minute drive away. When we’d parked and I started to get out of the car, I looked down for my purse.

Imagine my surprise when I saw…

Great.

Bad enough I was wearing fuzzy Toms. My bootcut dress pants would have at least partly obscured the shoes. But no–today I’d put on the ankle pants that I rarely wear.

This compounded the error, giving me a general air of nursing-home chic.

If Daisy Duck wore fuzzy slippers…

I gotta hand it to Brent… he made valiant efforts not to laugh.
“Oh well,” I said. “No sense being self-conscious about this. It’s not like they’re coming here to criticize my shoes.”

That being said, we went into the lobby where I tried not to think about my much-too-comfortable shoes. If anyone was judging my feet, they didn’t say anything to me about it.

When our friends approached, I casually maneuvered my feet behind a trash can and maintained eye contact with them. Equally casual, I…

• Brought up the rear going into the worship center.
• Breathed a sigh of relief when the main lights went down.
• Kept my feet under the seat in front of me.

Other than that, I never gave a thought to my fashion faux pas.

Actually, I wasn’t nearly as embarrassed as you might think. By the time we went to lunch, I really did put it out of my mind and just enjoyed the meal and company. I guess I’d learned, years earlier when I started back to college as a middle-aged grownup person, that

no one is looking at your clothes.

Surely you, too, have a fashion faux pas! Do tell! There’s space for you in the “Your turn: comments welcome here” box below.

Thanks for reading,
Jan