Food. Books. Alcohol. A sparse assortment of holiday and birthday gifts. And, I almost forgot—masks. That’s about it for my pandemic shopping. It’s been a very economical time.
But now I actually need something: Shoes.
It’s not that I wore out all my existing shoes during the stay-at-home year. Au contraire, my shoes are fine. It’s my feet. It seems that walking around barefoot for a year encourages, shall we say, “spread.”
The only shoes I can get my feet into are the ones I used to wear with thick socks.
Buying shoes has been a harrowing experience for me since at age eight or so my feet were too big to fit into Maryjanes and the salesman suggested that I “just wear the boxes.”
But I’m a big girl now and I’m no longer vulnerable to insults from shoe salesmen. However, as my feet grow larger, the selection in my size grows smaller and shopping for shoes continues to be a harrowing experience.
I’m working hard to see this all as good news. I’ve been double vaxxed, waited double the required period, will double mask as I venture into pre post-pandemic retail.
Maybe I’ll find Maryjanes. ❏
Jane Barowitz lives mostly in New York and sometimes in Maine.
2 Responses
I love this “wry” vignette about shoe-shopping: the indelible comment of a shoe salesman and the possibility of finding the longed for Maryjanes. It is as if, through the trial of the pandemic (and vaccination,) one has been created anew.
Hi Jane, love from Brazil!
Glad to hear that only your feet got bigger in this horrible times!