It's a long road finding the perfect black shoe

For the last week, in an effort to remedy the aforementioned working girl white sneaker/ black pant combo and it's painful alternative the $3 bloody sandshoe, I have been on the hunt for a new pair of black shoes. While this might sound like a very simple task, I'm finding it a ridiculously hard brief to fill.

To be honest, I'm not a massive fan of sensible black shoes - much like the white shirt, they scream "depersonalised service industry uniform" to me. I always feel really constrained when I have to wear them and in the past (after the obligatory few years clearing chewing gum off plates and making 2 year olds cappuccinos without the cappu) I have deliberately sort out employment that doesn't have a dress code of any kind, as I love my clothes like children and there is nothing crueler than locking your kids in a cupboard only to let them out on the weekend (in fact that would be against the law wouldn't it, or is that called boarding school?).

Now I've done a life u-turn and have found myself back in the service industry while I plan out the whole business thing, hence the hunt for the BS. Agh, it's really hard to make myself buy shoes that I won't be wearing for anything other than work. They have to be completely black, supremely comfortable as my legs are in revolt at the moment due to the large number of hours they are being walked on, waterproof, leather if possible so my feet breathe, less than $100 because I can't stand spending any more than that on them and please please please at least a teensy tiny bit stylish.

After trawling the two and a half shoe stores in small town with no joy, I gratefully accepted a trip one hour away to not so small town today, to see if there were any other options that didn't feature horrific silver eyelets, built up soles or overenthusiastic use of elastic. I did find a pair that I could put on without wanting to weep tears of disgust all over them, but of course they were too small. After enquiring with the lovely shoe shop sales lady (who actually knew how to fit shoes properly) if they had a larger pair she said they didn't but, of course, small town branch did.

Moral of the story... sometimes you have to go on a journey to find out that what you needed was at home all along.