Airport Etiquette: Shoes

As I was re-reading this post for grammar errors and such, I realized that some people could end up offended because of my own personal hatred of certain shoes and because I stereotype/generalize a bit. However, in the end, this is my blog where I feel I am allowed to express my own opinions and I'm not condemning anyone to hell by any means so here I go!

Minding your manners is so important and I thought I'd start doing some posts on minding your manners whilst traveling. Today, I'm sharing the importance of choosing the right shoe.

I've been in and out of airports all year, and as a seasoned traveler who has suffered through the TSA's "take off your shoes" rule countless times, I must say that I get so annoyed at the dozens of female travelers who either offend me with their hideous footwear and/or hold up the line with their ridiculous shoes. I pinpoint the females because the guys usually wear normal man shoes, e.g. sneakers/kicks or loafers, that are low-maintenance. I don't want to be too harsh or be offensive, but, every time I fly, I always encounter at least one of these three women:

• There's the "I LOVE UGGS and/or CROCS" girl who (usually) is also wearing some sort of coral or royal purple or cerulean velour tracksuit from Juicy Couture circa 2001 (J.Lo's video for the remix of 'I'm Real' with Ja Rule ignited this trend and it has yet to die amongst dumb tweens and "I think I'm hip" moms). This chick's holding up the line, not because of her footwear, but because she's not paying attention and forgets to take her laptop out of its case or argues with the TSA agent because she doesn't know the 3-1-1 rule and packed her expensive Dior lotion, which comes in a 6 oz. container. YOU SUCK.
• Then there's the girl wearing glittery 4" stilettos... to the airport. This lady starts being a nuisance by setting off the metal detector. Then, she takes forever to take off all of her jewelry (earrings, bangles, toe ring), walks through the metal detector, and sets it off again because she forgot her anklet. And all the while, she whines about having to take off her shoes because they make her too short and on top of that, she has to walk barefoot on the dirty floor. I DO NOT LIKE YOU.
• And lastly, there's the girl who wears shoes that take a solid 5 minutes to remove and often times, she needs help from another person. Then, once she's through the metal detector/ body scanner, she gets her shoes from the tray on the other side and instead of grabbing all of her stuff and moving to one of the benches to get her stuff together, she stands at the conveyor belt and tries to put on her shoes and holds up the line. YOU ARE THE WORST.

And so, fellow female travelers, I urge you to avoid being these annoying queue delayers and wear sensible shoes that are also fashionable and be mindful of the other dozens of people who are waiting in line behind you.

A few other tips:

• If I am going from cold weather to warm weather (like back in January when I was traveling from NYC to Hawaii), I like to wear the same type of shoe I might wear when the weather is transitioning form summer to fall: like those fox slippers or the brown loafers pictured above.
• If I am going from warm weather to cold weather (like back in January when I was traveling from Hawaii back to NYC), I like to wear sandals through security and then I'll switch my shoes while I'm waiting for my flight.

Cheers.