The Surgery

I wear size 12 shoes. Adding insult to injury, I wear size 12EE. That's wide. Pretty damn wide, if ya ask me. I've worn size 12 since, oh...let's see...7th grade. Uh huh. As if being 5'11" at age 12 isn't enough.

Back in those days, there weren't a whole lotta footwear choices. My shoe wardrobe consisted of Nikes - white with the blue swoosh. In the 8th grade, I got a pair of blue Nikes with a yellow swoosh. Ooh, snazzy! Not so much.

At some point during my high school years, my sister discovered a store called Freeman's. It was a huge shoe store in Pomona. Aisles and aisles of shoes stacked from floor to ceiling. The newspaper ad advertised shoes "from 6AA to 14EEE!" Damn! I could definitely find shoes there. The only decent shoes in my size were called 'skimmers' - your basic flat shoe. I got 5 different colors of those skimmers; wore 'em out fast.

As cute as the flats were, I wanted current shoes; shoes like my friends. It wasn't to be. Well, there was the espadrille incident...

It was about this time, that I proposed The Surgery. There were two options to The Surgery:

1. Cut off my toes, shave down some of the bone, reattach the toes. Or,
2. Cut out a chunk from the middle of my feet, reattach accordingly.

It wouldn't take much as I just wanted to be a size 10. A size 10 has no problem walking into any shoe department and finding shoes. Besides, if I went any smaller than a 10, I'd probably fall over.

Times changed, Payless Shoe Sources popped up, plus-size catalogues carried fairly decent footwear in my size and the need for The Surgery waned. Would you believe I was 19 years old before I wore my first high-heeled pumps?! I know!

I've been on a shoe kick as of late...and that pesky desire for The Surgery has popped up once again. I found a gorgeous pair of Prada-inspired pumps online...and wouldn't ya know it, they only go up to a size 10. I could always do the espadrille shuffle...

Sigh.