Jessica Simpson's Super High Pumps

IMAG0189, originally uploaded by NCVillamar.

On Monday, I wore my brand new open-toe platform pumps with 4-inch cork heels designed by Jessica Simpson.

I love these shoes. Although the heels are 4-inches high, and the platform is 1-inch high, making me a towering 5-feet 10-inches tall, these shoes are totally wearable. They don't feel like Uggs, of course, but I can wear them all day at the office, where I have a desk job. To boot, they make my legs look good. There is one teeny problem: They smell like deli meat.

At first, when I was taking the subway into work, I thought someone in the car had packed a bologna sandwich for lunch. But I kept smelling that "sandwich" long after I had settled into my office. I realized then that it was my new pumps. These shoes have a classic design, with the cork heels lending an edgy touch. The 4 inches give my legs a longer, leaner, more toned appearance, the effect of which unfortunately was minimized by the fact that my lower extremeties had the odor of a hunk of meat from the deli counter at the local grocer's. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like the smell of deli meat. I do! When I'm at a deli. Ordering meat.

I went out earlier in the day to run an errand, and a man passing by me looked and said, "Sexy." But before I could feel either flattered or indignant, the wind shifted, and he wrinkled his nose and sort of pulled his head back, then walked away faster than you can say, "A pound of pastrami, please." Later, I wondered whether he was being sarcastic when he said "sexy" and that what he really meant to convey was "Yah, like it's really sexy to belch after eating salami on rye."

Out in the high temps characteristic of summertime in Baltimore, my new shoes became even more pungent. At one point on the way to my errand, a woman complimented the shoes and asked if they were comfortable. Comfortable! Who cared about comfort. At that point, I was just hoping I wouldn't pass by any hungry dogs.

On my way home that afternoon, on the subway, I was surrounded by a group of what appeared to be grandmothers on their way home from taking their grandchildren to an outing, perhaps at the Inner Harbor. Once I settled in and turned my iPod up to a volume that blocked out other people's chatter but not loud enough to block out emergency announcements, I noticed more than a few of them sniffing the air, looking around to see who was breaking the no eating in the train rule. One of the grandmas caught my eye, and, hoping to avoid being outed as the woman who smells like sandwich fixin's, I subtly tilted my head in a direction away from me, suggesting that it was the man in a dark suit across the aisle who was chomping down on a little cured treat. Then I slipped on my sunglasses and pretended to go to sleep.

At home later that evening, I asked Randy to take a whiff of my shoes. He thought they smelled like something, but he wouldn't describe that "something" as deli meat. My husband has always thought I was olfactory-gifted, able to detect odors nearly as well as Jetsam, our dog. On the other hand, I think Randy is olfactory-challenged, because he needs me to tell him when his shirts get that mildewy smell after being left in the washer too long before drying. I don't know why I bothered asking him about my Oscar Meyer footwear.

The other day I read an article on CNN.com.  Apparently, a group was commissioned to study women and shoes, and the study concluded that in their lifetime, women collect around $24,000 worth of shoes. They needed to commission a group to reach that conclusion? They could have just looked in the closet of their female family members and friends. Randy calls it the biggest understatement of the century to say that I have a lot of shoes. I have been wearing the same size for nearly three decades, so the shoes do add up. Different shoes serve different purposes: work, court, date night, mommy outings, beach, cold weather, and now, deli-meat shopping.