Shoe! Let me shop in peace.

My childhood was an exercise in my body trying to catch up with my feet – they grew, and grew...and were a constant source of irritation for these reasons –

The school that I went to specified what shoes we needed to wear. I soon outgrew the 'children's' sizes, and shortly after, the adult female ones. After 8^th standard, I was constantly sold guys shoes, since they didn't stock my size in the ladies department. By this logic, the average female Indian foot size in the 80s was probably 4. I was a 10.

Just to illustrate how traumatized I was, here is a true story. When I was in middle school, my parents and I went to a new shoe store in the neighbourhood at the beginning of the school year to purchase white canvas shoes, as dictated. After much ado, the salesman was finally able to dig up the only pair they had in my size from the dark recesses of their store-room in the back. When they took the shoes out of the box so I could try them on, my Mum collapsed into fits of laughter. When she was finally able to stop, I asked her what was so funny. Her response - "The shoes say Cinderella on the inside, and she supposedly had the tiniest feet in her kingdom. Now, isn't that ironic?"

Moving right along....

Everytime I saw a pair of non-school shoes I liked, I would walk away sad. Of course they weren't available in my size! Time after time of being directed to the men's department and being relegated to wearing ugly shoes because they were the only ones that fit, led to my shoe addiction (This is what I choose to believe :P, so say what you will).

Thankfully, my feet stopped growing when they hit the double digits. I continued my quest for stores that would have nice looking shoes in my size. A new store called Lifestyle opened up in Chennai (my hometown) and a group of us from college went there excitedly. My joy knew no bounds when I discovered that they had a whole section of stylish shoes, in sizes 9 and above. Either statistics had shown them that the average had gone up, or there was some kind soul finally understanding of us shoe-starved bigfoots lumbering about the city. I'm convinced the CEO of this store was a woman with large feet. I made my first shoe purchase sans parental input! I went home with the shoes, and my mother was very pleased for me until she found out how much they cost. Little did she know this would only be the first of many such transgressions *insert diabolical smile*.

Over the next few years I amassed quite a collection, and was constantly ribbed by family and friends alike for my insatiable shoe-lust and the fact that my large shoes were making it difficult for other people at home to use the shoe closet. Have I mentioned that my close ones tend towards the dramatic?

In any case, I moved to the US to be with the spouse some years ago, and discovered that here was a country where I was the average! What do you think happened? Let's just say I occupy 90% of the allotted space for footwear in the house.

The other night, the spouse was asking me why I buy so many shoes and how could I possibly hope to use them all. He also raises his eyebrows every time a shoe box comes home, as if to say, "another!?" but usually refrains from commenting other than cautiously offering his opinion when I ask "How do they look?". I spent about 15 minutes trying to defend myself, and then realized that the spouse is a little bit of a foodie. I said - "Look, I think you've spent more on food over this year than I have on shoes. We eat out maybe twice-thrice a week, and I buy shoes once in maybe 4-5 months. At least I get to keep my purchases for over 24 hours!".

I rest my case.