Shoes, Handbags and Menopause

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Shoes and handbags such extras women give long thought to when selecting each morning. They must be chic, match the rest of the ensemble and most of all, must match each other. Yet, no thought is given to comfort, it does not matter the cost nor does it matter if either item serves any practicality. Exactly where did this tradition begin and why?

While I do not know where the tradition began, I can tell you it kicks in around adolescence and continues until menopause. This is when the handgun syndrome takes over and it best not to comment about anything to a woman in menopause. So why exactly does it take this chemical imbalance to make a woman wake up? My thought on this is that it may very well be the years of wearing of uncomfortable shoes and the toting of small suitcases that causes the chemical imbalance.

Think about it, women spend years wearing shoes for style and appearance not for comfort and practically. Women select shoes that I can only assume are part of some weird bondage cult that they are bound and determined to belong to. I have seen women who stood all evening in one fashionable location because should they try to move without assistance; well, let’s just say public intoxication would be the charge. Women also seem to have selected their weapon of choice to be a stiletto, why else would you wear 8-inch heels. With this entire shoe selection comes the accompanying handbag.

When selecting a handbag, consideration must be given to the selected shoes fitting in said handbag. I feel woman do not really want to carry these huge bags but they have to get from point “A” to point “B.” The bag is the only way to transport the pain inducing shoes. Problem with this scenario is that woman being the pack rats they are, continue to fill the bag until even the shoes do not fit any longer and a second bag is required.

When you start to add up the medical dilemmas no wonder in our later years do we develop a chemical imbalance? The shoes either totally stop blood flow to the feet or elevate women to a point oxygen deprivation occurs. Then you add the handbag. The weight of the bag stops blood at the strap location, thus stopping blood from reaching the brain. I think this where the term dingbat came from, no blood to the brain will cause you to be a little dingy. Women continue this ritual for 30+ years and then develop menopause, duh, no wonder.

While searching for my grandmothers’ purse this entire female, stylish dilemma came totally into view and this is what I have learned. At some point, while you still may have 60 pairs of shoes in your closet, you choose to wear the ones that fit and it will not matter that you are wearing all black and the shoes are brown.

So goes it with the handbag. Since you have reached the point shoes no longer have to fit, the bag only has to hold your keys and the free goodies you decide to collect. Practicality takes over and a strap that goes over your head is the best choice, makes the bag harder to lose. Style though, will always matter. The only way my grandmother would carry such a bag was the fact she realized it was the chic thing to do at the assisted living community.

She now wears brown, built-up, comfortable, fitting shoes and her handbag, it’s black cloth disco bag. But don’t tell her.



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