I Love This Shoe

by Taylor Orci

Ahhhh! I can’t stop looking at the Christian Louboutin spring collection! It has lace! Black lace! With a bow that’s also black lace! These are perfect! This is no good! Why can’t I open my computer and be distracted by something other than shoes? Why not storage solutions? Why not fatty foods? Why not anything other than something you pay more than $800 to essentially step on?

Why am I not more successful so I can have an excuse to wear fancy shoes? I have one pair of fancy shoes but am afraid to wear them because everyone would be like, “Jeez, why’d you get all dressed up, Taylor? It’s only Korean BBQ.”

I should work harder so I can be invited to more important things! I should get back to my deadline! But instead I daydream about special occasions in which I might wear these black lace slingbacks, like to balls and fundraisers in old bank vaults. Someplace you’d use tiny forks. These shoes look very philanthropic! I’d get thanked, and I’d be elegant and modest, not like how I am now, sitting next to a green sippy cup and a pile of W-2s ’cause shhhh who didn’t do their taxes last year? But look at the shoes!

Do I understand commodity fetishism? Yes. I also think shoes are like puppies! Scrolling down through thumbnail after thumbnail, each one with its own little personality. My heart warms, I can feel it. I want to take them all home.

Taylor Orci is a comedy writer and performer living in Los Angeles.