Do you really need another pair of shoes?

I went late night shopping today came back with some nice Christmasey fair isle jumpers but had a disaster shoe shopping experience and it reminded me of a writing competition I entered ages ago in Elle magazine with the title ‘Do you really need another pair of shoes?’ So I thought, as it obviously struck no chord with the judges of the competition, I would share it with you.

Do you really need another pair of shoes?

In short no. Not necessarily because they aren’t needed, because in reality I own a relatively small collection of shoes. I am most certainly not at the stage where if you open my wardrobe you are crushed under huge mountains of shoes or the stage where I have an extra walk in wardrobe with shoes on floor to ceiling shelves arranged by colour, but I’ve come to the point where I can’t physically deal with the excruciating pain of shoe shopping. I, as much as any one else, love looking at endless pairs of ridiculously high and over embellished shoes, the problem is that as a size eight, I have found it is basically impossible to buy a pair. It is said in that great classic film In Her Shoes that a shoe is so fantastic because it always fits. You would think for me, someone who is most certainly not a size zero, this would be a huge comfort that buying shoes will give you a boost that clothes sometimes can’t (especially if you have just eaten a large slice of chocolate cake) but this is certainly not the case.

The first part of my shoe nightmare occurs in your average high street shop where all the shoes are on the shop floor. A seemingly brilliant idea designed to make life easier for customers and shop employees alike. On the surface this is fine until you find a pair of shoes that you actually like. Now the drama begins, of course the bigger sizes are on the bottom shelf at the very back hidden under the masses of dainty and delicate size fours and fives. Lying on the floor in the middle of H&M is not an attractive position for anyone and passers by look down at the poor big footed girl scrabbling at the shoe in the far corner of the display with as much contempt as if she was an axe wielding murderer. Then you finally find a dusty shoe right at the back of the shelf unloved and waiting just for you. However, it would be too much to ask for there to be the other one in the pair. If by some miracle you find the other size eight in the entire shop obviously it is for the same foot as the one you’ve already found.

Then there are the specialised shops just for shoes, beautifully laid out with the comfiest chairs and all the shoes you could ever wish for. These shops have assistants to cater to your every shoe related whim, until they know your size. Then the ever so helpful, please let us do anything to help sales assistants suddenly change and give you a look with different stages. First disbelief, then after realising you’re serious they look at you as if you just asked them to strip to their underwear and run round the shop singing Is this the way to Amarillo?, but the final look is the most memorable and that is the look of pure distain. They jokingly say that of course they will have a look in the back but they weren’t sure they had any left in your size. They probably don’t even look properly, just stand in the doorway count to ten and come back out again, but much to my surprise they return with handfuls of shoes. My eyes light up until the inevitable, ‘Sorry, we didn’t have your size but I brought you these.’ So, the humiliation begins as I attempt to squeeze my oversized feet into as many size sevens as possible, but no of course none of them fit and I once again leave the shop in a deep depression with the evil cackles of the small footed girls in the shop resonating in my ears.

So, I return home and decide the best way to buy shoes from now on would be online so the credit card comes out and I sit down at my laptop to begin to search for some shoes, but yet again disaster strikes. After clicking add to basket I’m told that size eights in that style are sold out and after searching through the few suggestions, all of which are either trainers or some kind of disgusting, ugly loafer, I once again give up. Of course they are sold out why would any where still stock size eights when apparently I’m the only person left in existence who wants to buy them. I can’t even borrow any shoes from anyone I know because all my friends are normal human beings with normal feet whereas I have feet which are the polar opposite of hobbit sized.

A few scoops of Ben and Jerry’s later (straight out of the tub of course) I am resigned to the fact that I am the owner of abnormally large feet and have all but given up on shoe shopping. Although shoes are allegedly a woman’s best friend after diamonds I think that these imposters should make themselves scarce and we should remember that all they are useful for is to keep our feet dry and protected, they serve this purpose alone and that is how it should stay. They should most definitely stop becoming too big for their boots and just do the job they’re designed for. There is no need for them to be anything else and they shouldn’t have the satisfaction of making my otherwise lovely shopping life a misery!