Rule # 11: Stop, Prop, and Roll (Out of Your Shoes)

It's a conspiracy. Seriously.

The world knows I've adamantly attempted to maintain some semblance of fashion sense and cuteness (see Rule 8) during this pregnancy thing. But I'm not idealistic, or unreasonable. I knew that my high heels were unfairly banished to the back of my closet as soon as my belly button popped like a cooked turkey. I was prepared for this limitation in my footwear.

So my solution? Flats. Plenty of cute, comfortable, solidy stable flats that I could wear to work and look professional, pregnant, and still cute all at once.

But nooooooooooooooo. Could the world give me this one little thing? Could it use its mystical forces to grant me the ability to wear stylish flats with ease so that I felt as if I'd maintained at least an iota of my former self in this bloated state?

Of course the hell not.

Let me break it down into a little equation for you:

[Pregnancy + End of Summer + 3(Days of >90 degree heat) + Cute shoeware] / Working Conditions - Air Conditioning = Feet Bloated Like a Dead Floating Body in an Episode of CSI (any spinoff of preference works here)

I'd like to say that this wasn't a problem until the end of my day today, when I sat in my classroom with three fans blowing on high and two windows opened to maximum capacity with the lights rebelliously turned off, only to find it still sweltering. I'd like to pretend that only after three full work days of those conditions, with over a hundred hot-air-filled teenagers in & out of my room, did I discover it impossible to cram my toes into the pair of black flats I've owned for two years. You know, one of those pair of old reliable shoes that you've broken in, so that they conform to your feet just right. If your feet had parents, these shoes would be them; that's how comfortable, reliable, and supportive they are to your tootsies. I'd like to say that only after hours of sweating and water retention were my swollen soles no longer welcomed with open Mary Jane straps.

But I can't. Because the sad truth is, they were really tight this morning, when I shoved them on in the last two minutes I had to pack my lunch and skid out to my car.

Take it from me, my prego friends: don't live in denial like I did. You won't have near enough patience, tact, or tolerance to outlast the inevitable disappointment you're headed for when you ignore the blister that's formed on your heel before you even turn the ignition to start the day. Just purchase cheap clogs that will match most outfits and avoid full-length mirrors, so you don't have to see what you've been reduced to by your uncooperative body and its lovely little passenger.

So thanks, summer, for needing to be so damn hot that my FEET look like WATER BALLOONS one needlepoint away from explosion. And thanks, pregnancy, for making me feel like an 85-year-old granny who needs to wear support stockings and prop her feet on a crocheted footstool after ten minutes of any movement.

Good thing I'm getting a custom-made baby out of this deal.