Would you laugh if you saw Lucille Ball slipping on a banana peel?  Evidently the tourists of Crazie Town would, because I’ve been asked to give more humiliating details of my ego killing shoes.

Last Friday, I was invited to lunch on the Plaza (Kansas City’s equivalent to LA’s Rodeo Drive) with several ladies that I used to work with at Big Corporation.  I knew these women would be wearing their hippest duds and I was looking forward to dressing up — as I’ve spent the last few weeks wearing tattered sweats, hunched over my keyboard, frantically working to finish my first novel by the end of the year.

Evidently, I’ve also spent the last few weeks stuffing my face because when I attempted to pull on my “cool” jeans, they wouldn’t fit.  I pulled out my industrial strength Spanks and tried again.  Success!  I slipped the Killer Shoes on my feet, took one last satisfied look in the mirror and tottered out the door.

I met my fabulous looking friends at the entrance to the restaurant and then, we paraded single file behind the hostess to a table in the back.  With a haughty smirk, I strutted my stuff past several booths of perfectly dressed Ladies Who Lunch.

BAM!  In a prat fall that would have made Lucille Ball proud, my feet shot out in front of me and I was on the floor.  I blinked a couple of times, wondering why my view had changed from people’s faces to people’s feet.  A woman in the booth I’d collapsed in front of, leaned down and whispered “I almost did that same thing.”  Was that supposed to make me feel better?

When I realized my friends had not noticed my ego-busting move, I climbed back up on my towering heels and shuffled quickly to the table.  I would have made a clean getaway, except the manager came over to see if I was all right.  I waved him off, with my left hand and spent the rest of the meal trying to ignore the throbbing in my right wrist.

There’s the story, my inquiring friends.  Oh, one more question that several people asked.  Did I finally shout a curse as I fell?  I am sorry to report that the two words that escaped my mouth were…Oh My.  I also vividly remember hanging on to my purse, evidently in case I was mugged while lying on the floor.

When did I become my Great Aunt Marjorie?  I guess I should be grateful I didn’t break a hip.