Notes on The Walk of Shame.

posted in: Day In The Life, Tips 1
"Shoe." McClurg Court, Chicago, IL. 8:45am, September 29, 2013.
“Shoe.” McClurg Court, Chicago, IL. 8:45am, September 29, 2013.

“Look at that!” my friend said, pointing across the street. “That’s a shoe.”

I looked over. It was a shoe. Just one. Nice, too. Pretty sexy. We crossed the street to investigate and I took a picture for you. My friend and I were full of breakfast.

Because you, gentle reader, are so gentle (and chaste and respectable and pious) I shall ‘splain to you something called “the walk of shame” because the shoe this morning was perhaps the best evidence of the WOS that I have ever encountered. The walk of shame happens when you spend the night at the home/apartment/dorm room of a paramour/booty call/random dude* and you have to leave and go outside. Sometimes you have to walk a fair piece because there are no cabs or bus stops nearby. A walk of shame can happen just to where you parked your car the night before; that definitely counts. Sometimes, you can’t find your purse/wallet and you have to walk the whole way. That’s gonna be the worst right there, because the only thing worse than the walk of shame is the long walk of shame.

The shame happens for the following reasons:

a) you have baggage about extra-marital sex (and you had some)
b) you are hungover (again)
c) you are dressed in the clothes you wore last night, as evidenced by the fact you are in a cocktail dress at nine in the morning, barefoot, your high heels wedged into your purse because your feet hurt
d) you’re being honked at (people not on the WOS love the WOS)

I did the walk of shame exactly once. I was in college. I was so far from home that morning that it makes me cry just thinking about it; there was no bus. There was no car. There was me, a sparkly blouse, and about a mile-and-a-half of questionable sidewalk between me and my sweet, sweet coffeemaker and bunny slippers. I got the honks. I got the cramp in my foot. I got the vodka headache and I definitely got the message.

But I had both my shoes.

*guys can do the WOS but because most dudes’ day clothes look similar enough to their goin’ out clothes, it’s less obvious. Also women + sex = societal shame, men + sex = “sowing oats”