A Day in Someone Else's Shoes

I am a big fan of the second-hand name brand clothing shops here in the Phoenix metro area, such as My Sister's Closet. A girl can find a pair of Prada shoes for a quarter of their original selling price, Coach handbags for a few dozen dollars and Oscar de La Renta tops and gowns for a fraction of what they would cost new -- all in great condition!

Not only does shopping at these kinds of places equal a lot of fun (what girl doesn't love buying glamour at famine prices?) and save a lot of money, it's also interesting from a social science point of view.

Sometimes I come across the oddest articles of clothing and try really hard to imagine what kind of an individual its previous owner was. This is especially fun to think about when I reach the shoe aisles, because some of the pairs are so lovely, and others

are entirely bizarre. I try to imagine the fancy dinners, the not-so-fancy dinners, the vacations in Italy, the vacations in Padre Island, the tennis matches and the college classes.

I think it would be interesting to discover the previous owners of the shoes I buy, just out of curiosity, just so I could see who it is that I unknowingly have something in common with. I wonder if she's like me. I wonder if she likes to read, if she likes to play sports and has ever traveled outside the country. I wonder what she does for a living. I wonder how old she is. Is she married? Does she have kids? I wonder if she even likes Chinese food, just like me.

Another curious thing to ponder is which women are out there right now, walking around in their favorite pair of shoes of the day and making memories, until one day, they, along with that pair of shoes and those memories find their way into a second-hand store, and then into my little hands. I could have passed her (and her shoes!) on the street!