So, I'm in Lowe's yesterday picking up paint as usual and notice that there is a "new" guy mixing my paint. Normally it's this really nice older lady named Nancy that I have become to adore and trust through my remodeling fiasco. While my paint is mixing I usually stick around and talk to Nancy about various finishes, colors, whatever.... Since Nancy wasn't in yesterday, I decided to roam around the store to pick up several more things. I have Bryleigh and Halle with me, so in order to keep them focused and not annoy me, we go to the ceiling fan section. I don't know why, but they love looking at the ceiling fans.
This is right after work, so I am still in my work clothes. Slacks, dress shirt, and my adorable, most favorite, comfortable, black heels that I splurged on at Christmas and purchased myself. I NEVER spend more than $20-$30 on shoes, but I loved these shoes and they had them on sale at Macy's at the time so I decided to get them. I paid $120 for them on sale, but I have definitely gotten the wear out of them.
After I convince the girls that spending $299 on a surf board ceiling fan is not an option for them, we head back over to the paint counter to pick up the paint. Let me emphasize Pick Up the paint. It is sitting on the counter ready to go. I check the color and tell the new guy thanks. As I am turning around the bottom of the paint can hits the side of the buggy and bright yellow paint (in slow motion) pours down the entire right side of my body, down into my shoe and onto the floor. As I stand there in amazement, I hear Halle say "Oh Lord!, those were my favorite shoes". I turn around and tell the guy "You didn't hammer the lid on the paint, did you?" His response was "Oh no, what have I done".
He comes over and starts cleaning the paint up off of the FLOOR!! Yes the FLOOR! I immediately start running around trying to find something to get the paint off of my shoe. I find a bottle of Goof Off and just open the bottle and start scrubbing. By this point the store manager and several other store employees (as well as a small crowd of customers) came over to help. I am almost in tears, but since the kids are with me, I try to keep it together as much as I can. As I sit on the counter of the Lowe's paint center watching the chaos, I wonder....when did I become so material? I'm like Carrie Bradshaw in that episode where her girlfriend makes her take her shoes off to come in the house and then her friend loses them... It's crazy! Was it what I paid for the shoes that is getting me so upset, or the fact that I had them broken in and now I'm going to have to do that all over again? The store manager said to bring in the receipt for shoes and new pants and she would happily reimburse me. However, I know that I'm not going to find those same shoes again and I know that it's going to take at least 3 or 4 months to get them back to the same comfort level. It's quite silly actually, but it all comes back to "I'm being Inconvenienced". Just a simple tap of a hammer, two seconds worth of work could have avoided hours, weeks and months of me being inconvenienced.
But today all I can think about is that poor guy. How humiliating it must have been. New on the job, probably trying his best (at least that is what I keep telling myself) to make a good impression, and me....acting like I had lost a precious possession. What if he has a family to support? What if he had tried to get that job for months and now he gets shipped back to the lumber department because he made a mistake. I would feel terrible.
I guess this was just God's way of saying...."Hello, Ashley....there are things more important than shoes and pants" So, today as I wear my old brown heels, I am happy to have them and happy that I have feet to put them on and a job to wear them to.
