Sole support

I love shoes, but my feet don't.

Shoes with high heels, pointy toes and ankle straps might look amazing, but ouch. With cute shoes, I usually know what I'm getting into. After all, shoes that pinch my toes in the two minutes it takes to try them on at the store are likely to be downright painful on their first night out.

Sometimes, though, I'm surprised. A pair of shoelace-free sneakers that look comfortable and (dare I say) sensible have turned out to be deceiving. It looks like I could run a marathon in these shoes, but my arch starts hurting before I've walked a block. Still, this is the pair that I reach for whenever I need a pair of cute walking shoes.

The husband regards these sneakers with more disdain than my stilettos. I must confess that the stilettos I only wear out to dinner while the sneakers I wear when I'll be doing a lot of walking. "Why don't you wear your running shoes?" the husband innocently asks on such occasions.

Um, hello, those are for running. And they have those ugly laces. Arg.

When I informed the husband that I would be wearing my cute sneakers to Six Flags (well, he asked) he decided it was time to take action. He bought me a pair of arch-protecting socks. They worked. After walking for 12 hours on hard pavement, my feet were fine.

I guess you could say my husband is my solemate.