Barefoot on Bourbon Street

It all started with the jeans.

A few weeks ago, I went shopping with the intention of getting a pair of jeans I could wear out in New Orleans. I had three pairs, at that point, and all were problematic:

1. The Gap Long & Leans were no good because I’ve worn them about 43,238 times since I bought them, and they’re frayed at the hems and wearing out in the ass region. No good.
2. The NY & Company Battery Park Bootcuts were no good because they were too long, and baggy in odd places. They were fine for weekend shopping but not perfect for going out.
3. The NY & Company Downtown Flares would have been perfect and awesome, except for the fact that the zipper on those jeans is broken and won’t stay up. Seriously, it doesn’t matter how sleek and ass-enhancing and perfectly-flared a pair of jeans is if you spend all your sober time tugging on the zipper, and all your drunk time forgetting that it’s broken and thus flashing your underwears at random passers-by.

So, my sisters and I went shopping, and I ended up with a pair of DKNY Sohos that, at the time, I loved. Oh, and I got them for about 80% less than their original price, which amped up the love.

But I tried them on a few days before leaving for New Orleans and they’d become baggy enough that they looked like man jeans. Sammi swears that they were baggy in weird places in the store, too, but I must have ignored her when she said it then. There was no way I was taking them on my trip, and in fact, I schemed for a way to return them to the store. The fabric softener scent on them probably would have given me away, though, as I washed them a couple of times to try to shrink them a bit. Didn’t work.

I’m a compulsive shopper, especially when about to travel, so I ended up at the Gap on my lunch break the day before I left for New Orleans. Because, in addition to now needing jeans, I was having a hard time finding just plain, non-trendy t-shirts. Seriously, what is so hard about that? After trying on about 80 different things, I ended up leaving the store with a pair of low-rise bootcuts, and these shirts:

I also wanted one or both of these tops, but they were weird because the armholes and chest region on my usual size were a little tight, weirdly, and the next larger size was falling-off too big. But they’re cute:

The jeans were too long in the store, and I knew that, and I should have done something about it, but I assumed they’d be fine if I wore heels. My legs are a weird length, and so the result is that the short length (usually 29 1/2″) is too short, and the regular length (usually 32 1/2″) is too long. I really need like a 31″ or 31 1/2″ inseam.

So yeah, I bought these jeans, and again, I loved them at the time, and then I got to New Orleans and got ready to go out and the jeans, they touched the ground even with heels on. So I put on higher heels, the heels I’d brought to wear to the wedding, kind of like these but with a taller, skinnier heel:

And the jeans still touched the ground. ACK.

I ended up changing back to the stupid NY & Co. pair with the good zipper, and rather than being smart and putting the low heels back on, I stayed in the higher ones. And the other members of the bachelorette extravaganza and I put on some beads and headed to Bourbon Street.

And we walked a lot. Oh, and we drank a lot, did I mention that? We walked from our hotel on Canal Street to Pat O’Brien’s, where I made the command decision to drink not one, but two hurricanes, and then we walked back to the hotel to drop off the drunkest among us (which should have included me but magically did not, because I was sober enough to walk, but drunk enough to make poor judgment calls), and then some of us headed back down Bourbon Street, and during the course of the evening I became convinced that my feet were covered in blisters and could fall off at any moment.

It got to the point where I was noticeably limping, and began to weigh the relative merits of walking back to the hotel barefoot against the dangers of picking up skeevy diseases on Bourbon Street. With the awesome bridesmaids Amanda and Kathryn as my guides, I compromised, stumbling in shoes to Canal Street and walking the rest of the way barefoot. I did, however, stand barefoot briefly on Bourbon Street while making this decision, which is something I bet most of you haven’t done. Because you are smart, wise people with good judgment.

I know, it’s totally gross, and something I’d never even remotely consider under other circumstances. I assure you that I drank about a fifth of rum that night among other things, and that the poison in my blood quite possibly outranked any poison on the ground.

I will say that I felt marginally better about walking that last stretch barefoot when I woke up the next morning and saw through blurry eyes that my feet were, in fact, covered in blisters and had actually bled at some point during the previous evening. I then washed my feet about fourteen times, bandaged them up, and slept in the other bed for the rest of my stay.