The Saga of the Spoiled Silver Slippers

Right. Thursday is World Book Day. I’m going to be dressed as a character from my favourite book. Any guesses? I’ll give you a hint--it starts with O and ends with Z and if you get it right you win a trip over the rainbow.

 

I’ve been beavering away on a Dorothy costume--one based on the book not the film. I did copious amounts of research on how to make the shoes. The problem was every website I found was talking about leather shoes and red paint. Clearly they were all thinking about the film.

 

So let’s get this straight.

 

Silver slippers = book, ruby slippers = film because red showed up better in Technicolor.

  I wanted silver shoes. I followed the guidelines and bought best quality silver spray paint. I bought a *perfect* pair of non-leather shoes that looked so very much like the illustrations in  many books. They had a slight heel to them and I thought I might  have a bit of trouble walking without a wobble so I had planned to only wear them at school--to wear other shoes for the dusty 15 minute walk to work. Once safely at school I would change into my perfect footwear and just be careful.

Spiderman sprayed my shoes for me as spray paint messes with my asthma. I normally don’t like using spray paint as it has a scary warning on the back, but I planned to cut back in other ways on my carbon footprint to make up for any damage I had done to the ozone layer. The shoes when they were wet were Perfect and Beautiful, but when they dried they were something else.

 

Spoiled.

 

If this were an anthropomorphic children’s book it would go something like this:

 

The Saga of the Spoiled Silver Slippers

 

Once there was a pair of silver slippers who were very spoiled. They didn’t have to do anything all day but sit there and look pretty, but they would have none of it.  As soon as a coat of shiny, silver paint was applied, they wrinkled up their shiny silver noses until cracks appeared in their skin. How they loved making mischief!

They did this every time and it made a little girl who desperately need silver shoes by Thursday very sad indeed. But the shoes just laughed. Didn’t I tell you they were spoiled? They just refused to cooperate no matter how much the girl pleaded and promised them a starring role in her costume for World Book Day.

 

But no. The spoiled shoes just spoiled themselves over and over until finally they were discarded for another pair of silver, sparkly shoes.

“I was just playing a joke! I didn’t mean it!” they cried, “I want to be part of your costume for World Book Day!”

 Objects in the photo are sparklier than they appear

 

But the little girl just smiled at her new shoes. They were not as perfect as the other shoes, but they would do just fine. These shoes didn’t mind being painted silver. They liked when the glitter glue was rubbed all over them--they thought it tickled. They were excited to have a crossover link to Doctor Who when some of the silver fabric used to make a model of K-9 was used to make some decorative bows. They were proud to be part of the costume.

“We’re from the book, you know” they said as they nodded sagely,” not the film.”

 

And they all lived happily every after except the spoiled pair of shoes who were unceremoniously dumped in a plastic bag to stop the flakes of silver getting *everywhere* and then forgotten about.

 

The end

 

Why did the paint refuse to stick and  just crackle and flake off?  Who knows. Why did other people’s paint stick? Was it because their paint was red and not metallic? Who knows. Was it because my shoes were not leather but synthetic? Who knows. Maybe if we remove the paint from the uncooperative shoes and sand the surface to roughen it up the paint will adhere. Maybe not. I am concerned about breathing in all those fumes and paint flakes--I don’t want to be like Buddy Ebsen (yes from the Beverly Hillbillies) who was supposed to have been the Tin Man in the 1939 film and he breathed in all the aluminium powder from his silver make up and nearly died and was replaced with Jack Haley (who incidentally was *not* told why Buddy Ebsen left the picture!)   

 

 

But the thing that really surprised me was that I handled it so well. What’s the big deal, I hear you ask? It’s just World Book Day, for pete’s sake. Well…..there was a time when this would have thrown me for a loop. I had my head and my heart set on the uncooperative shoes and no alternative would have been good enough. You could not change my mind--I’d be like a brick wall (if a brick wall could cry and swear a lot) and I’d be a misery guts to be with. Try as I might I would *not* have been able to let go and it is likely I would have said something ridiculous like, “Well I just won’t go at all then!” 

 

I know. I know. But do you want to know the most amazing thing? Despite having been like this a lot in the past--Spiderman married me anyway. He says I am much easier to be around now that I don’t act like such a mad woman. Although, he has said on occasion that there isn’t attic big enough to hold me. Why are mad women always locked in attics in Victorian melodramas? 

 

But there you are. The saga of the spoiled silver slippers and the solution of the sparkly silver shoes. Try saying that 3 times fast.

Stay tuned for a photo of me in my whole Dorothy outfit--complete with silver shoes and Toto the dog!