Fairy Tale Ending

I found them!  The perfect shoes!  They are sparkly and silvery and the heels are not too high.  And they are 40% off!  I will be a princess!

“I’m being honored at a charity gala,” my bestie, Susan, texted a few weeks ago.  “Come with me!”  Her hubby has some medical issues—he’s severely allergic to galas.  So I get to go instead!

A gala!  I immediately found THE dress—on sale, of course.  All I needed were the shoes. 

And now I have them.  I practically purr as I touch them.

I keep them safely wrapped in their plastic bags on a high shelf, gazing on them every few hours to make sure they are still safe.

Suddenly, it is time to dress.  Susan and I have ordered a cab since neither of us wants to drive in high heels.  It won’t exactly be a coach, but it will seem like it to us.

I stuff my bulges into Spanx and then carefully slide on my glittery confection of a dress.  I look fabulous!

I pop a Gas-X—I can’t be too careful tonight.

Susan texts that the cab is on the way.  I text her back and then text my kids to tell them their mother is a princess.  I hear Oscar gnawing on the new elk horn I gave him this afternoon but otherwise the house is quiet.

I turn to step into my perfect shoes.  Why is there only one?  I set both of them down right before the text arrived.

Son of a biscuit!!!  It’s not the elk horn Oscar is gnawing!  It’s my shoe!  My beautiful shoe!  This dog, even when he was a puppy, has never chewed a shoe.  Why does he pick tonight to suddenly develop a shoe fetish?

I scream and Oscar looks around to see what is wrong then returns to his feast.  I grab the shoe, clutching it to my chest.  I can’t cry because it will ruin my makeup, so I emit a steady stream of very bad words.  Very, very bad words.

The tip of the heel is gone and the silver fabric is shredded.  I can’t afford to panic—I only have ten minutes until the cab arrives.  I grab a gray Sharpie and color in where the fabric is torn.  I look around for the rubber tip of the heel but realize Oscar will probably throw it up sometime in the wee hours.

I try them on and I only lean slightly to the left.  I can walk if I’m careful and take small steps.  Hopefully no one will notice I’m walking like a pirate.

I take a final glimpse in the mirror.  I hobble to the front door to greet the cab.

“You look wonderful!” Susan says as I get into the cab.  “Like a fairytale princess!”

But I still walk like a drunken pirate.