Sandals: the Great Equalizer

I have big feet for a chick.  They're also wider than average, so I've mostly given up on women's shoes and buy a men's size 10 instead.  Even a men's 10 will often fit awkwardly, though; I think my huge wide feet must also be kind of funny-shaped.

When I put on my Buick-sized men's oxfords and clomp outside, I can't help noticing that pretty much every woman I see is wearing distinctly feminine footwear - often something fancy and fashionable enough that it can't possibly come in unusual sizes*.  And I start believing that Mother Nature must have completely standardized the shape of the female foot...for everyone but me.

Then summer comes, everyone starts wearing sandals, and suddenly I have X-ray vision.  Shoes don't have tops on them anymore!  I can plainly see that almost nobody's foot is the same shape as the rubber sole it's resting on!  Women are walkin' around with a full inch of space between their toe-tips and the end of their sandal, or with their preturnaturally long second toes gripping the edges of the soles like fleshy pink talons.  Some women's toes are attached on such a steep diagonal that their big toes are near the edge of the sandal sole but their little toes are like three inches away.  Some women's toes go so straight across that their little toes are almost falling off the edge of their sandals because of the way the soles taper in.

There is no "standardized foot" - only (somewhat) standardized shoes.  Everyone is just buying whatever size doesn't actively maim them and then making do as best they can.

I feel better now. :)


*Note to small-footed people: for those of us who need a shoe bigger than a women's 10, the choices are generally very limited, very generic, and often very orthopedic-looking.  Unless we go to a store aimed at crossdressers, in which case we can buy all the enormous Lucite stripper-heels we could ever want.  Which in my case is "zero" but to each her own.