I'll never forget the annual humiliation when sitting at my local Stride Rite store, waiting for the middle aged shoe salesman to measure my ever growing feet. From his shirt pocket, he'd pull out my record of extraordinary foot growth on a well-worn index card and would bellow,"Wow, she'll be in a size 11 by the rate she's growing."
Just what a 10 year old tween wants to hear in a store packed with her peers.
It never bothered me being tall; there is a certain elegance to being long and lean, but having big hooves is as manly as one can get without having a mustache. And with menopause snipping at my calloused heels, I'll be plucking stray chin hairs in a matter of months.
Having big feet limited the choice of footwear, particularly in the summer- no white flats or sandals for me. I mistakenly bought a pair of cute white gladiator type sandals during one summer and they looked as if I strapped on two mini fridges on my soles. And when my father joked that I needed to put license plates on them in order to walk on the street, they ended up in the garbage bin that night. Flats made me feel like a clown and whenever I walked barefoot, I felt the distinctive and repetitive slap of my large hooves as they struck the pavement, thump, thump, thump, sending up clouds of road dust. There is little grace in a size 101/2 flat footed woman.
For years, I would try to squeeze into 8's or 9's- with often disastrous and crippling results. Though I would no longer buy a pair of snake skin heels, there was a time when I couldn't have enough reptile on my body. From belts to bags to shoes, I just about rattled as I slithered through town. When I spotted two pairs of size 9 designer snake skin heels on a sales rack, marked well below their original price, I jammed my feet in and said "sold." They'd be perfect for my upcoming trip to the city. They were simply gorgeous, absolutely sexy and nearly two sizes too small. But that was just a minor detail. After all, my feet looked spectacular in those stilettos. And hadn't we all been told that beauty equals pain- think bikini and underarm wax.
But what I failed to factor in was the monstrous heatwave that had crippled New York City for the preceding week. A blast of hot thick air greeted me as I stepped off the cool train, the oppressively hot air instantly turning my blown dried hair into a frizzy nest of waves. By ten blocks, my feet had doubled in size, rising like two doughy loaves of bread, flowing over the shoes, the seams of the snake skin heels nearly bursting under the strain. My toes were curled, the twisted knuckles bulging beneath the snake skin pumps, and I hadn't brought a back up pair of shoes. The only thing that saved me was meeting my best friend at the Seaport Bar for a few stiff vodka and tonics. That was the last time I ever, ever crammed my feet into shoes that were too small.
When our daughter was born, I knew the odds weren't in her favor of inheriting her father's dainty English feet, his long non-hairy toes make up half the length. (I frequently catch him admiring his feet as they're propped up on the coffee table, pointing and stretching his toes like a dancer) No, those Teutonic Cade chromosomes were tenacious and trampled the hell out of the Jones' petite feet genes.
That poor girl walked out of my uterus with my formidable feet and her father's slender toes. And she hasn't forgiven us yet.
We went shopping for flats last week- heels bring her well over 6 feet and majority of 9th grade boys, so we immediately set our eyes on flats. But with a large foot and long, long toes, that presented a design problem: toe cleavage. Now, there is nothing worse than having toe cleavage in flats- and if I were a shoe designer, I'd exponentially increase the amount of leather that wraps around toes as the size of the shoe increases. But they don't do this. And flat after flat exposed the trunks of her toes. I thought about designing a toe flap, a small piece of fabric that would forever close off the toe cleavage. Perhaps this would be my pet rock.
But thanks to Simply Vera Wang at Kohl's, the toe flap has been tossed beside the many other would be inventions because we found the perfect flat for a big foot with long spindly toes. They modestly cover the toe cleavage and the funky little bling that sits atop of the flat looked simply adorable.
They are a 9 1/2....and when I shoved my foot in, they kind of fit, if I crumpled my toes. I walked around the house, wondering if I could get away with wearing them for an upcoming event.
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