I decide to go shoe-shopping. At Goodwill.

I know what I'm looking for: leather, minimal heel, dressy enough to wear with skirts, ideally tan or a similarly neutral color.

I am not here to buy clothes, but I can't resist looking around. I talk myself out of red corduroy pants, a polyester blouse, several garish sweaters, and a set of Anastasia juice glasses.

I find the shoes. There are several promising-looking pairs, which I try on. Curses. Why do old ladies have to have such small feet? I find a suitable pair in more-or-less my size. They fit. I mentally class them as irredeemably old-ladyish.

I buy them anyway.

Justification: they will only look like old-lady shoes if I wear them with old-lady clothes. As long as I dress like a young, hip fashion maven (instead of the batty old cat lady trapped in the body of a college student that I actually am), people will assume that they are Vintage Footwear. No one will suspect that they are actually old-lady shoes from Goodwill! ...right?

...right?!