Comfortable shoes

I am no fashion guru (that was just a general comment, not a polling question so just leave it alone) but lately I’ve been seeing a lot of people (mostly women) with shoes that are way too big for them. Like this young woman I saw recently, she was dressed up in all black, looking very nice in her tailored outfit, and bright green shoes. She looked nice, made me take a second look………at her shoes.

I couldn’t figure out, for the life of me, why if you wore bright green shoes in a manner that drew attention to your bright green shoes, you would wear bright green shoes that were obviously TOO BIG. I figured it was an anomaly…….until I started seeing people with oversized shoes on a daily basis. I started to feel like the kid in The Sixth Sense…….I see big shoes.

So I’m really interested in this apparent new fashion statement. I know that buying big shoes is the norm for kids, because they’re growing. If you’re lucky, they’ll grow into them before they’re completely destroyed. But I’m talking about adults here, if your foot grows anymore,you may need to see someone about that.

Being fashionable can be expensive so maybe they’re just buying cheap shoes. Many of us remember (at least I do) going into the store to get that first pair of “dress shoes”. Your mother picks out what she thinks is a nice pair or leather shoes, and asks the salesman for your size. The salesman comes back with the shoe…….and a shoe horn. For the next several minutes you struggle to get the thing on. It’s kinda “snug”, but they (your mother and the salesman) both agree……”that is good leather, it will stretch”. Well maybe they don’t have green shoes in “good leather”.

Now this is not a woman’s issue, (lest I be labelled a sexist). I’m pretty sure we’ve all at some point or other seen the guys with the court jester shoes…..you know the ones that curl up at the front? Well if they went shopping with my wife, there is no way they’d leave the store with a shoebox the size of a briefcase.

Reminds me of the time my wife and I did go shoe shopping. I had these sandals I really loved and one of the buckles broke, so I went to get a new one (I’m easy that way, no need to fuss, if I like it ,I buy another one just like it). We walk into the store, I see my sandals, I ask for my size, then the salesman starts to get all scientific on me. He pulls out his foot measuring thingy, measures my foot then literally adds a size to it. Dude is standing there trying to convince me that this was my ideal shoe size, scientifically proven and all that. In the meantime, my wife is standing behind me “quietly” grumbling, and saying things like “crap” and asking questions like “who he feel we look like?” Needless to say,I left the store with sandals in a “less than ideal” size.

Hmmmm…….maybe that salesman became so incensed, he went off and started a revolution in shoes or something, and he was somehow able to convince people that these shoes really were the “ideal size”. Or maybe, he’s not really a shoe salesman but he manufactures slings and casts, and figured out the ideal way to drum up business.

Whatever the reason for the big shoes, I’m not jumping on that bandwagon. Those sandals I bought………they stretched.

Tags: fashion, people, shopping