Shoe size woes

Date published: June 10, 2007

As I've mentioned before, I'm not the tallest guy in the world, but I'm not abnormally small either. Out of all the smallness, there is one thing that takes the cake though... my feet. I don't tend to think that a men's size 7 shoe is that ridiculous, but apparently all of the shoe stores in and around the Marketplace Mall in Rochester think a size 7 sports shoe is ridiculous. Foot Locker, Dick's Sport Goods, DSW Shoe Warehouse... not a single one of them or any of the other stores that I tried, had anything below a size 8. At Dick's, the guy suggested that I look in the youth section; it didn't have any athletic kids shoes. Another day when I went to Dick's looking again (because it had the best selection of shoes by far), one of the sales guys suggested I look in the women's athletic shoe section. Last time I check women's feet were not as wide as men's, and I already have a wide foot for men's sizes anyway. To make it even more humiliating, the guy measured my foot on the women's foot sizer. After that, I simply had to choose one of the many women's size 8.5 shoes.

I stood there looking at the array of shoes. Which color to choose? Pink? Periwinkle? Salmon? Baby blue? I left vowing to never return to Dick's again for shoes.

Another week later, as summer volleyball season was approaching, I had to get my lens prescriptions updated (yes, they were updated only a year and a half ago... my eyes are getting worse), so I was left for an hour to wander around the mall blind. I went to get something to eat, and while walking back to the lens store, I realized that the store right beside it was Altier's Shoes. Now I've wandered into Altier's many times before and never found anything I liked, let alone anything my size, so I had written off the store. I stumbled around the store, getting withing a foot of each shoe while trying to actually see it, and low and behold, there was a size 7.5 athletic shoe that looked decent. I glanced around quickly to see if any of the customers around me were witnessing the miracle. Granted they were a half size too big, but I tried them on and they felt good enough. I figured that I'd never find anything closer, so I bought them. Sport Sketchers for less than $40. Not bad at all.

Within the next week, I had two friend tell me they had the same pair (albeit in larger sizes).

So, do companies only make clothing for 80% of people? I hear people complain about sizes being too small for them, and now here I am saying sizes are too big. Seems like 20% of us are out of luck.