Shoes, it seems, are my downfall.

I like to study shoe catalogs in the same way some people pore over a John Grisham novel.

High heels, flats, sturdy walking shoes, sandals and flipflops capture my attention. How would I look in those purple mary janes? Would those stilettos cause my foot to cramp?

Do I dare order those green boots when I only have one outfit they’d go with?

Most of the time reason wins out when I’m considering a shoe purchase.

I’m not about to order those stilettos.

Normally I choose sensible neutral colors and comfortable styles for my shoes. I’m on my feet a lot so I try to be kind to my tootsies.

Last year, however, I really stepped out. I bought a pair of red shoes. By anyone else’s standards, they probably looked downright dowdy. They were leather mules; you know, the backless style. You just slide your foot in and go. Because I considered them cool weather wear, I always wore socks with them. Nothing tacky; always coordinated with whatever I was wearing.

I loved wearing my red shoes.

All last winter I trod everywhere in them.

At the first blast of cold this year, I brought them out again. Comfortable like old friends, they were.

Then one day they tripped me up.

and upon my first step onto the sidewalk, my right foot seemed to stick, while the rest of me kept going. Purse, camera, water bottle, notebook and attending dogs went flying. I had on several layers of clothing which provided padding as I went down on my hands and knees. I emerged unscathed, but slightly disheveled.

“How did that happen?” I wondered.

A week later, it happened again. I was going up our front steps and the toe of that right foot just grabbed the weathered wood for a second. I pitched forward with the momentum I’d built up rushing back to the house to get my cellphone.

Again, I was unhurt.

I’m only five feet tall. I don’t have far to fall.

So later in the day I’m still puzzled about why I’ve fallen twice while wearing my beloved red shoes.

Then I get a telephone call from Daddy.

“Your mama just fell. I think she needs to go to the emergency room.”

Mama had been filling her bird feeders when something shifted beneath her feet and she was launched into her asphalt driveway.

The nice lady doctor at Tri-Lakes glued her forehead back together and gave her a tetanus shot.

Meanwhile, at about the same hour as Mama had taken her spill, sister-in-law Rosemary had a close encounter with a New Orleans sidewalk. She’d had her arms full of groceries. Thankfully, Rosemary had no permanent damage. (Both she and my mom wore dark sunglasses for the next couple of weeks to hide their black eyes.)

Later that night, still wearing my dangerous red shoes and pondering the accidents that day of my mother and Rosemary, I was helping Rupert deliver North Mississippi Heralds hot off the press. I had a stack of newspapers in my arms as I approached the threshold of the Herald office in Water Valley. The demon shoe made me fall again.

That’s it.

I’m not wearing those red shoes any more.

This is really hard for me. The shoes hardly look worn at all. I had lots of things I wore them with, but I must part with them. As long as they are still in my closet I am still tempted to put them back on.

They mock me.

“We won’t make you fall again. It was just a coincidence that you fell twice on the same day as your mom and Rosemary.”

The shoes are size 7 narrow. Somebody come get them.