Shoes

Herman looks distressed because I apparently have stolen his feet. Many people think of me as a genial, old, golf-playing chimp. But, when it comes to shoe buying, I'm Herman Munster. If the average American man wears a size 10 shoe, as has been reported and the standard deviation on a Bell curve is two, I am at the teeny part of the right hand edge of the distribution, over two standard deviations out. You know, where only the freaks dare to tread (pun intended)? For a guy with my foot issues, buying shoes in an actual store is nearly impossible, at least in Hooterville. My shoe buying is relegated to the internet for the most part. The downside of the internet is that you can't really tell what a shoe will look like on your foot, or if will even fit, for that matter. I remember one time buying, what I thought was a passable shoe from an online retailer, at least based on the picture. I like them so much that, I ordered a pair in brown and another in black. When they arrived, they looked like something that you would bring to Godzilla's baby shower. Big, shapeless baby shoes. They stayed in their box for years until I gave them to Goodwill. So, what I do, is order what I know. For casual wear, basically anytime I'm not at work, I wear these. Van's Classic slip-ons. I buy one pair of blue and wear them out. Then, I buy one in black and wear them out. Recently, Mrs. Sneed said to me, "Herman, if you didn't buy crappy canvas shoes, they wouldn't wear out so fast." Interesting. So, I have been on a quest to find an acceptable shoe in size 15 or size 14 in a pinch. And 14s do pinch. By acceptable, they must be slip-ons because I can't be bothered to tie my shoes every time I put them on. Is it too much to ask that a guy can buy a damn pair of shoes? Apparently, it is. Something like this would be quite nice, but Sperry only makes this shoe up to size 13. Puleeeze, I wore a 13 in high school. What we have here is blatant discrimination against the otherly-footed, namely me. Something has to be done and soon...my Vans are falling apart. If you would like to help stamp out (pun intended) this unjust situation, please take a minute to write to your congressperson. Ask them to introduce legislation to right this wrong, once and for all. Even a big-footed, genial, old chimp deserves the right to a good fitting pair of shoes. This is still America, after all. Vote for change, and remember, its for the children...and me. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky