Birthdays and shoes

[hildy89]

Happy birthday to whytcrow and sventhelost and a belated one to ariadnesthread. I will actually be able to make the ninja party through no effort of my own. Various other family members had stuff today, so it necessitated moving to Sunday.

I had a rather depressing day of shopping today at Tysons with my mother. I have very narrow feet, wearing a AAA (slim) width. I am used to hearing "Oh, no, none of those come higher than a narrow" or the inevitable offer of "We can order it". All of our usual subjects have bailed from the slim widths, like Easy Spirit. Selby went out of business. Nordstrom has remained the last best hope for shoes in my family. They have traditionally carried the odder widths. Sadly they seem to even phasing those out. We had a saleslady today who visibly cringed when we gave my size. I don't wear a 9 or 10 1/2 like some of my friends, just a plain 8. She kept calling the A widths "smalls". The quads (AAAA) or "superslim" were double smalls. I almost thought I'd found the perfect shoe from Munro, but they're one of the other breed of shoe company, who jumps from AA to AAAA without any breath in between. And what are those of us stuck in the middle supposed to do? They tout themselves as the "Proper Size and Perfect Fit". Well, it's the Goldilocks routine. The narrow is just big enough to make the heels slip and I felt like I was stuffing my feet into a vise with the SS. I guess I'll have to break down and look at special ordering online or something. Because there aren't any shoes to be had in this town!

Comments

[nycdeb.livejournal.com]

oh how I feel for you. I have the opposite problem at the other end of the spectrum. I wear 10.5. Not 10. Not 11. Have you ever looked at the shoe sizes generally availble in the catalogs. Half sizes availble UNTIL 10.

Sigh. Until last year I also managed to complicate that issue with being a WIDE shoe. Now it's not always the case. But oh how I LOATHED shopping for shoes. I did find that Easy Spirit had odd or not as mainstream sizes though. They are still open here and are selling through their website (which I've ordered through before and they are VERY prompt and very helpful). Maybe there is another nearby?

[hildy.livejournal.com]

Easy Spirit is still around, but they don't do AAAs anymore.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

zappos.com -- free shipping, pre-paid returns (just drop 'em off at any UPS or whatever place). :)