My feet are not too big !

The BBQ Pit
1

I need new shoes. My trusty Birkenstocks are a bit worse for wear so at lunch today I thought I’d go looking for a new pair of sandals.

“Heh, heh.” chuckled the Fates. “Look at her. She thinks she’ll get a pair of sandals that are affordable, reasonably attractive, and that fit. I guess she just hasn’t learned her lesson yet.”

Off I went to Aldo Liquidation, my favourite shoe place, because their shoes are generally wider than the other stores, they’re high quality, and inexpensive. Wide enough for me to be able to get my enormous, hulking feet into them.

I found a few pairs that I liked. “Do you have this in a 9?” I asked the salesguy, who (as all salesguys do) looked surprised that someone’s feet are actually size 9. Someone must have size 9 feet because someone’s been buying them, because there are never any left in the stores I go into.

Score ! One of my choices did come in the unacceptably gargantuan size of 9. Thank og !

Tug, tug, squeeze, pull, tug. Scowl. Tug again.

“No, they don’t fit. They’re too narrow.” sez I.

“Oh, your feet are too big.” sez the salesguy.

“Um, no, I think it’s more accurate to say that your shoes are too small.”

He did not look amused. Lucky for him I didn’t let him have it. I was saving it for the Pit.

Fucking hell ! My feet are a perfectly good size ! They are wide and that’s just the way they are. In fact, I’ve been told that I have quite nice feet. Well-proportioned, shapely, no fallen arches. Big enough to stop me tipping over (I’m pretty tall). In fact, I think I’ve got great feet ! Why is that not acceptable? Why am I forced to wear shoes that are either (a) men’s (b) ugly or © expensive? ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH! It’s a damn good thing I like my Birkenstocks because it’s the only fucking kind of shoe it looks like I’ll ever get to wear again. That or combat boots.

Actually, miraculously, I did find a pair of red 4" stillettos that fit. Not exactly practical replacements for Birks but I felt a bit redeemed.

My feet are not too big. Your shoes are too fucking small.

But I’ve learned my lesson, which I painfully have to re-learn every season. Don’t go shoe shopping, cowgirl. Just get the Birks repaired. You will never be fashionable.

2

I have stumpy feet, with stumpy toes and stumpy hands with tiny, girly fingers. :frowning:

Very sad. My shoe size is somewhere between 9.5 and 10, depending on what shoe it is.

Fate hates me worse than it hates you.

3

I’m so sorry, Neurotik. It’s tragic that the fashion industry has decided that we are uncool. I’m sure your feet are lovely. Where do you buy your shoes, if you don’t mind my asking?

4

I’m a 6, and I have very unattractive feet. I’d rather have an adorable 9 than a funky 6 any day!

5

What a second. MY feet are size 9, and they’re PERFECTLY SIZED.

Clearly, the man was smoking crack.

Good luck on your hunt. Actually, I have no problem finding shoes - I have about 200 pairs - try Arnold Churgen. Or 9 West - they fit bigger - I can get away with an 8, or sometimes even a 7.5. :slight_smile:

6

Sorry, but they are.

“Say up in Harlem at a table for two
There were four of us,
me, your big feet and you.
From your ankles up, I’d say you sure look sweet;
From there down there’s just too much feet!
Yes, your feets too big.
Don’t want ya, cause ya feets too big.
Can’t use ya, cause ya feets too big.
I really hate ya, cause ya feets too big!”

Ah, Fats Waller, what would we do without ya…

7

I have size 9 feet too.

Yep, size nine and freakingly ugly. I have confirmation of this as ‘fact’ thanks to my first boyfriend. He had a foot fetish. I wouldn’t let him see my feet for the longest time, in fear that it would ruin my ‘possible person to have sex with’ image. After convincing me that he loves all feet, assuring me that he finds little feet quirks to be ‘cute’, and that he always has something nice to say about feet, he finally got into my socks.

And sat there looking at my feet, unable to think of anything to say. When I pulled my feet away while blushing, he told me not to worry, that his thing with feet wasn’t that important.

I wonder if it would have been better if he’d actually said something so I would have known what he was thinking.
“Wow! I’ve never seen toes this knobby before!”
“Don’t listen to fashion magazines, sock lint stuck between toes is sexy.”
“Hmm…is it just me or is your baby toe trying to mutate? I almost see a little eye…”

In empathy to the OP, I understand how you feel! I lived in Japan during ninth grade, I never did find a pair of shoes that fit!

8

My feet are most definitely too big. Mens 13, in a 6E (yes, you read that right) width.

9

I wear a 10 on a good day, a 10.5 otherwise. Boats. Although I have a friend who wears an 11; talk about never being able to find shoes!!

Seriously, try Lands End. Affordable and nicely sized. And available in wide. Granted, you do have to mail order, but hey, if nothing else is available, at least it’s a good option!

10

I just wish the shoe industry would make the connection between big shoe size and tall women. I am 5’8. I am very happy at 5’8. I don’t feel the least bit inadequate about being -only- 5’8 (especially since the SO measures in a little under me and I like being within arm-around-shoulder level). But when I go shoe shopping, I know how wrong I am to be happy at 5’8, because damned if anyone stocks anything attractive or comfortable in a flat shoe ( if anything flat at all), even at size 9-10. If it doesn’t have a heel, it has a 3 inch platform or some such.

This was particularly vexing when looking for winter boots to walk to University in during a Manitoba winter. I went through all nine shoe stores in the mall, only return to the solitary pair of reasonably flat soled boots ( and inch and a half or so piled onto the bottoms) I’d found at the first one. All height issues aside, teetering along on spiked heels over sidewalks that won’t see less than an inch of ice and snow till May seems a tad risky.

Tall women have big feet. It keeps us from falling over. Is it so wrong to want some big shoes to be flat so I don’t have to be any taller?

11

I’m 5"4, and I have size nine feet, and I’m considered to have little feet! (Well, except by my step-dad, but that’s because his daughter wears a size five) What crack do these sales people smoke?

12

Of course, I am a guy, so maybe I’m in the wrong thread…

13

Well, I wear Vans or sneakers normally. For dress shoes I got a nice pair at Hecht’s, another nice pair at Today’s Man and a very comfy pair of Rockports at, um, someplace else I can’t remember.

The Hecht’s one was the most non-fun. Every shoe I liked either wouldn’t fit me, or it would be too big and crease against my poor toes. But the guy was very nice about it and after about 15 minutes we found a nice pair that fit pretty well.

Oh yeah, my feet are fairly wide, too.

14

I too have large, wide feet with a very high instep - spent many an unhappy childhood day searching for shoes with my Mum. She would always suggest the shoes that a Grandma would be happy with because they were wider. It usually ended in tears.
Then, one day I went to Samoa with my sister (trying to escape the Olympic Games in Sydney). It was like coming home. I no longer stuck-out with my big and wide feet - actually my sister started calling me slim foot! And people positively celebrated their large, wide feet - everyone was in jandals (flip flops or thongs).

15

My father, when he was a teenager, was having a hard time finding shoes to fit. The salesman, exasperated, told him he’d be better off wearing the boxes. Forty years later and that off-hand comment still had sting.

The good thing about it, is that he made extra sure to let my sister and I know that we were fine the way we were. I hated that I didn’t have tiny feet when I was growing up. To make matters worse, our school required a certain brand of shoes that were known to cause seizures they were so clunky and ugly. Thanks to Dad though, I’m now able to see that my feet are just fine and proportional to my height-- I have size nine feet because I’m tall. Any smaller feet and I’d be tipping forward all the time!

16

Another size 10 with giant, ugly feet. And I am lucky I’m not into shoes because size 10 shoes are ugly, too.

Not that they have to be, but that’s the way they’re designed… it’s as though the designers say “lets see how hideous and big and we can possibly make her feet look. And while we’re at it, we’ll make them uncomfortable, too!” Or they don’t understand proportion so that feature or detail that doesn’t look too bad on a size 5 shoe looks stupid when it’s blown up and is now out of balance with the heel and the other features on the shoe. (Where the point looks ok on the small shoe, but when it’s gotten that much longer on the size 10 it looks like you’re impersonating an elf.)

This is of course, assuming you can find them at all - as most places seem not to believe that women’s feet come bigger than an 8.

17

So, I’m guessing that my wide, size 12 feet are just freakish (for a woman anyway).

They used to call me Bertha Bigfoot when I was a kid. :frowning:

18

Same here. I’m 5’5", with size 9 feet, and I’ve repeatedly had people comment on how small my feet are! To be honest, I’ve never really had any problems finding shoes the right size, my only problem is that I get blisters from everything, including Birkenstocks.

19

5’7", size 9. My mom’s the same height and a size 10 wide. Being broke, I tend to shop for shoes at Payless, where they seem to think that most people shopping for women’s shoes size nine and above are buying them for drag shows.

My brother wears size 15 (he’s 6’7") – this is okay when you’re shopping for basketball shoes, but apparently he broke the Tall Rules when he joined the track team, and when he got a job requiring nice shoes, because lo and behold, nothing but basketball shoes in his size.

I’ll second the suggestion of Land’s End – I’ve got a pair of their all-weather mocs that are some of the best shoes I’ve ever owned.

20

I wear a size 11 E or EE. Sometimes I can get away with buying a 12 W at Payless, but only if it’s a forgiving style. I must say, though, compared with the dearth of shoes in my size when I was a teenager, the availability of large-sized shoes nowadays seems absolutely heavenly. I used to have to resort to “orthopedic” shoes in order to find any that fit.

There are four shoe stores in town I refuse to even set foot into because their salespeople have made remarks like that to me. If they think my feet are “too big,” then my money is probably not good enough for them anyway.

Well, they figure that if we wanted to wear pretty shoes, we wouldn’t have grown our feet so big!