Pumping It Up

My daughter heads off today for a week long orientation before she starts her first real job in the real world. Naturally, we went shoe shopping to get her ready. Most unnaturally, we bypassed the tables full of funky sandals and leopard skin wedges and overpriced ballet slippers and settled instead around the much more serious minded displays of pumps.

I don't remember ever getting too excited about my pumps, the perennially uncomfortable bits of leather I could not wait to slip out of after a long day at work. My toes still bear the scars of the too tight vamps; I still shiver at the thought of having to ever again wear a pair.

But it's not the eighties anymore, and, as far as I can tell, these are not mommy's pumps. The nondescript black leather footwear has been relegated to the discount tables, replaced by some alien looking hot and slutty variations. Make no mistake; these are anything but CFM's. They are, rather, DFWM's (don't fuck with me's). Our daughters will wear these with poise and dignity, and the only person to whom they might cause any pain is the guy in whose crotch they land, the guy who dares to piss them off.

My daughter will pack her new pumps tomorrow, along with a few new suits that, mercifully, do not make her look like a little gray mouse trying to look like a man in a suit. Times have changed, but not completely. She is nervous, I know, and no matter how confident she appears in her new uniform and with her brand new credit card in her purse, she will feel a bit shaky, a bit off balance. She is as qualified as the next twenty-two year old to "consult" on complex business issues (and by that, I mean not at all), but it will take her at least a few weeks to realize that everybody else does not know more than she does.

I gave up my pumps and little gray mouse suits long ago, and don't really miss them. But I am excited for her, and, I admit, a bit envious; for the clothes she gets to wear, for the expense accounts she gets to run up, and, most of all, for the shoes.

Go kick some ass, my love.