Ouch!

I've written about how beautiful ballroom is, I've written about how hard ballroom is, but I haven't yet written on how expensive ballroom is! I bought my first pair of real, honest-to-goodness ballroom shoes today to the tune of $167 (including tax). Of course, I had to get the most expensive pair in the store because with my extremely narrow feet, they were the only ones that fit. They have 2 1/2-inch heels with a tiny footprint (heelprint?), and dancing in them feels like being on demi-pointe all the time. Up to now I've been practicing in my character shoes - it's nice to finally get some use out of them - and I've noticed that it's gotten me somewhat used to being in heels. I still rock around a bit in the character shoes, which scares me because I really don't want to have ankly surgery again. I think I'll practice in the new shoes at home for a while before taking them to class. Hopefully that will make it less likely that I fall on my face (or butt) in front of everyone. How graceful would that look? You'd think, given that I don't give a thought to paying $60 for a pair of pointe shoes that last about a month during heavy rehearsal, that this shoe price shouldn't be so painful, because I'm sure these shoes will last much longer than three pairs of pointe shoes. I've just never paid this much for ONE pair of shoes before.