Footwear Fail

Ow.
Ow ow ow ow ow.

Dear friends, I am going to give those of you considering a trip to Washington, DC a little advice. Yes, it's important to get a SmartCard for the metro/buses. And true, being aware of current events helps facillitate communication 90% of the time. But there's one wee tidbit of information that I wish someone would have told me before I began this never-ending hunt for an internship.

Wear comfortable shoes.

In all honesty, how can these interviewers expect us to maneuver our way around downtown DC-up and down eternally broken escalators, dashing across crosswalks, hopping onto crowded buses-all while sporting our chique little (and terribly-awkwardly shaped) pair of (fill in the blank with favorite impractical brand) 10-inch heels??

Granted, maybe trekking around the city once or twice in these absurd fashion-concoctions would cause minimal, though by no means pleasurable, pain. It's only around the fourth or fifth journey to a new poorly-described location that one begins contemplating whether or not taking an unpaid internship at the local CVS would be preferable to taking one more step in the torture devices now securely strapped to your feet.

So, it is for this reason that I made the executive decision to walk to my interview today in my $1 Old Navy shower shoes. What a great way to beat the system but stay in the game...right? Well, everything's going swell, I make my way from the metro to the interview site smoothly (with a few stares, of course, but that's to be expected when dressed from head to ... ankle in a full suit, only to bottom-it-off with 2 lovely gray pieces of plastic), and quickly change from plastic to pointy toe in a slightly deserted parking lot not far from my destination point.

And tada! Shoe success. All said and done, that wasn't as awkward as I had expected, and it was totally worth my unmarred heel and toes.

I felt great, I looked great, and the interview went ... well, not great, but decently enough. And as Mr. Producer kindly escorted me from the conference room, he turned to me with a just-slightly-too-sweet smile -

"Well, I noticed you were here early." Awkward pause. "I saw you changing your shoes outside the building."

...

And guess who wore her unnaturally pointy obviously-not-made-for-human-feet-shoes for the rest of the day?
Well hello there, blisters.