I admit it. I've taken my feet for granted. I've forced them into shoes because the shoes looked good - not because they felt good. After years of this abuse I'm feeling "defeeted".
After a bit of sole searching - of my shoes - I discovered that the majority of shoe designers are men. I wonder if women's shoes would fit better if those men tried to put the shoe on the other foot.
Kenny George, a 7'7", 360 lb basketball player for the University of North Carolina at Asheville, wears a size 25 shoe. Although that's three sizes larger than Shaquille O'Neal's, Robert Pershing Wadlow wore the world's largest shoe - size 37. Studies have proven there's no correlation between the size of a man's foot and the size of his penis, but there seems to be a direct correlation between the size of the foot and the size of the mouth for both men and women. Our mouths are always big enough to stick our feet in.
In spite of that equality, ninety percent of common foot operations are performed on women - the same women who buy shoes that are often 2 1/2 sizes too small. According to the National Association of Podiatrists, our feet should be measured at the end of the day when they're biggest; and the shoes we buy should be a half inch longer than our longest toe. Obviously, I've been buying shoes that are too small and that's why the truth hurts.
Feet feel best when they're bare and weight is evenly distributed across the whole foot. The higher the heel, the more strain it causes. Spike heels are the worst. They put all the weight on the toes. Having had several pairs of spike heels, I know why the last little piggy cries all the way home.
Bunions, calluses, fallen arches - I knew podiatrists treated foot-related problems. I didn't know they also treated ankles and knees. Maybe this world would be a better place if we had more podiatrists. Maybe we'd be better able to walk a mile in the other fellow's shoes.
Regardless of what shoes we're wearing, we're told to put our best foot forward - which is physically impossible. Good, better, best - because we have only two feet, the expression should be "put your better foot forward". Then again, when it comes to using the English language, it's easy to have two left feet. |
