My stubbornness almost lost me my feet

I am not a very frugal person. I like to go out to dinners at nice restaurants and buy designer clothing. I enjoy going on vacation and partying at bars and clubs weekends. However, the one thing I have never been able to get over is my dislike for paying for taxis. In my mind, nothing is a bigger waste than spending $15 on a cab when you can just take the bus. If it were up to me, I would make my friends take the bus or walk with me everywhere. It literally makes me nauseous having to shell out any cash with nothing to show for it, except a change in location. Yes, it may take longer, but it just doesn’t seem worth the money to save the time.

Last night I went out with a group of friends for happy hour. I left around 8:15pm and realized that if I hurried I had enough time to catch the last shuttle at 8:30pm to take me to the transportation center where my car was parked. Thought I walked as fast as I could, I literally missed my shuttle by 2 blocks. I saw it jet right by and there was nothing I could do. At this point, a normal human would have decided to cab the rest of the way, but not me. I decided to walk. I was wearing a pair of shoes that were on the small size and had a small 1 inch heel, but they are pretty comfortable so I decided I would be ok.

About 1/3 of my journey home, my feet started killing me. It got so bad that I started texting everyone I knew in Russian Hill to see if they could help me. “Do you still have your car in SF/are home/aren’t busy?” “Do you have a band-aid, I am dying.” “EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY!” No one answered. So I continued to truck along, literally hobbling down Van Ness onto Lombard.

Eventually I got a text response and my friend told me he’d give me a ride. As I opened the door and hurled myself in with all of my upper body strength, I realized both of my heels were bruised and blistered. He looked over at me pitifully and asked me “was it worth the $10 you saved to be in this much pain?” I looked down in shame and simply answered “no”. When I got home I Google mapped my walking path and realized it had been about 4 miles.

I woke up this morning, and my feet feel awful. This Sunday is Bay to Breakers and I will probably be stumbling around like some kind of drunk injured elephant (a literal elephant, because that is my costume). But thinking back, I wonder, would I attempt that again. The answer is yes, because I really hate cabs.