I'm going to share a bit of personal information in this post. You have been warned.
I have big feet. All the men in my family do, but mine are so big they are just silly. My ideal shoe size is probably what New Balance sells as size 14 4E. In other words, size 14 super extra mega wide. If you're not familiar with the shoe selling business, most shoe manufacturers make men's sizes up to size 13. So basically, giant mutants like me are shit out of shoe shopping luck.
The result of this is simple. I go shoe shopping very rarely, I generally do not get shoes that fit me correctly, and when I get a pair that fits I wear it until it crumbles to tiny pieces.
I have a pair of business casual shoes that I wear to work, and a pair of sneakers I wear everywhere else. Right now the insert on the work shoes has worn away to just a few little ragged strips, and the soles are full of cracks and holes. The sneakers are also wearing away from the inside out. I have been wearing both pairs of shoes since at least 2006.
Suffice to say, it is time.
I used to be able to go to Dexters for casual shoes and the New Balance outlet for sneakers. No more. Today Jen and I went to a couple of different stores. One had a pair of size 15 wide casual shoes that sort of fit me. I was going to buy them until they told me the price. The same shoe in size 13 sells for the insulting price of $80. The size 15? $165. No thanks. At another store we found a pair of sneakers that were pretty close to a good fit. These were also size 15, but no pair of 14, 15, or bigger were wide enough for my freakish appendage. We still need to find me a pair of shoes for work.
Jen was getting upset at the difficulty involved and I do not blame her, but I've been going through this sort of crap since my late teens. I'm used To being blatantly discriminated against by the footwear industry. It's just the way it goes.
AAARRRGGHHH! I just posted a comment that didn't "take". What I tried to say was, there's a store around the corner from our house that in the last week I've heard at least 3 people tell me how great it is and how they always get hard-to-find shoes there. It's called the Shoe Dept. and it's right across the highway from our local Wal-Mart. If you guys are planning to visit next Saturday, maybe you could try it and see if they can accommodate you? I'm planning to try it too because I also have very wide feet, except in a women's size 6-1/2 or 7! (I'm not sure if they're open on Sundays, but I'll try to find out and let you know.)
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