Looking Down

Most women are used to a guy's eyes gravitating to points north on their body.  What would women think if they knew that my eyes are programmed to look down (in addition to north because, after all, I'm a normal guy once you get past this peculiar interest of mine)?

I can't help myself, as much as I've tried in the past to keep my interest in a woman's shoes from taking control.  Of course I make it a point to be as discreet as possible, but I'm not sure if I'm always successful.  I can only hope.  At least looking down has provided me with lots of visuals, lots of insight and lots of stories throughout the years.

It was when I worked part-time at a local grocery store that I really began paying attention to what women wore on their feet.  Over time I discovered there were some customers that I really enjoyed seeing walk up and down the aisles.  Three stand out in my mind- all middle-aged, and all with an affinity for Keds and Keds-style sneakers.  One (who, for some reason, stands out in my mind as having always been pregnant despite the fact that I only ever saw her with one of two kids) had feet that would cause the uppers to bulge severely on the sides of her feet- something that those kinds of sneakers didn't seem designed to prevent all that well.  Another had sneakers that always had holes on the sides, and regardless of the pair she was wearing they were always in the exact same spots.  If I was working on the sales floor, I'd always make it a point to start blocking a lower shelf in their vicinity so I could be closer to their feet as they walked by (yes, I never forgot my retail terminology, despite now having been out of the business for close to a decade.)

However, there was one woman that still stands out in my mind for a number of reasons.  First, she was the mother of a good friend of mine throughout my school years, all the way up to a few years following high school graduation.  Second, she was divorced but clearly had money, which made it amusing that she wore the most trashed, abused and plain disgusting Keds you can ever imagine being used as serious articles of clothing.  They weren't falling apart like those featured in one of my favorite YouTube videos (see below) but they were stretched out, scratched and faded beyond belief.  What possessed a mature woman with money to leave her house in such lousy sneakers when she likely had a closet full of more presentable options?  Third, she always seemed to bestow upon me an unreasonable amount of attention, often stopping me for half hour-long conversations that would have left my boss fuming had I not been such a good employee.  I can recall a talk about not knowing how to cook leading to her begging me to come over to be taught how to prepare a meal, another about going for a ride in her new car and even one where she boasted about the virtues of younger men.  Had she not been the mother of my friend, I probably wouldn't have ignored her flirtatious overtures.

Speaking of trashed and abused Keds, check out this YouTube video.  It starts out with some nice footage of the wearer playing with her pumps in the snow but then heats up when she tosses a rotten old pair of the things to the ground and tramples the living hell out of them, even going as far as to shove the pumps she's wearing into the Keds.  The fact that the uppers are ripped and torn to the point of barely being able to hold themselves together makes the sneakers appear to shudder in either pain, fear or both.  There's no telling what I'd pay for a pair of Keds like that if they came my way.