You could have done worse than the pale beige. I worked in a family shoe store, in a wealthy area, and we had some fairly bright colored suede sneakers in sizes for fairly small rug rats. A young mother came in to complain that the sneakers stained her new snow white carpeting; we're talking about someone with a couple of little kids who was apt to hatch more of the little critters. A number of experiences there led me to believe that too much money can actually cause brain damage.