I confess. I have spent the better part of my life vainly looking for a mate — the shoe that goes with the one I have on. Call me crazy. I like my footwear to match. They say the first step in tackling a serious problem is to realize you need help. Well, I’ve known for years I had a problem organizing my shoe collection. I also knew I had to stop myself before I bought another pair of black heels. It’s not that I’m Imelda Marcos. I can’t seem to get my *@&$ and shoes together. Maybe I need one of those GPS tracker thingies in my high heels because one of each pair is always AWOL. I might find one under the bed, but the other is in a perpetual game of hide-and-seek. I need an intervention or at least a method of getting my garanimals to match. It’s not that I haven’t tried. I have. I’ve tried all kinds of systems from the right-there-on-the-floor-in-plain-sight-method (RTOTFIPS) to the under-bed storage unit, also known as “Out of Sight, Out of Mind Organizing System.” I’ve tried various hanging contraptions, and all they seem to do is systematically dump all the pairs into a heap or bring down the bar that holds my clothes — a design flaw that brought me right back to the RTOTFIPS method. The last time I tried to get my shoes together my OCD was in high gear. I spent a whole weekend photographing each pair of shoes, hunting the boxes they came in, labeling them, classifying them, cross-referencing them in a manner the Library of Congress could envy. It wasn’t pretty. And then, last year, I thought: I FOUND IT! An $11 miracle: The Neu Home 18 Pocket Hanging Shoe Bag. Zephyr, model #56901. I could see several pair, all at once and all in one place, except…
Whatever makes one adopt a new habit and stick to it didn’t work with this storage system. The only thing that stuck was my footwear – adhered with humidity to their thick plastic cocoons. Geesh, I wasn’t trying to laminate them! I ended up spending way more time trying to extricate them than I did wearing them.
So now I’m back to the over-the-door, navy-blue, hanging canvas, 20-pocket shoe organizer. It’s got those babies off the floor and still in plain sight. Sigh. Kitten heels, peep toes, and pumps, nestled in pairs, together at last (for now). Just in time for Fall and Winter. Boot Season! Uh-oh.
