Sole Searching

Few things are more satisfying than ordering a pair of good shoes online. Watching the package’s slow journey from one international hub to another, tracking its every move, and finally, the thrill of trying them on, and finding a perfect fit—it’s a spiritual sensation. But alas, my experiences have been far from this ideal. Similarly, there are few things more dissatisfying than ill-fitting shoes. As you may have guessed, I fall into the latter category.

If it had happened once, I’d resign myself to the lesson of my ancestors: shop in a mall. But receiving badly-fitting shoes has happened one too many times for my youthful naivety to be an excuse. Perpetually hoping that ‘next time’ might be better is probably a universal human trait – whether in love, a cricket game, or online shopping – but the numerous and elaborate ways in which I fool myself are quite startling. I’ve become something of a connoisseur of self-deception, a sommelier of subterfuge.

In my defence, there’s a lot riding on a good pair of shoes. In fact, human history is incomplete without them. I have it on good authority that Moses wore Bata gumboots when he parted the Red Sea. And it is unlikely that the American West would have been tamed without the cowboy boot. Let’s not forget your punk(ish) cousin in her Doc Martens or your maternal uncle whose idea of being young is donning the latest Yeezy amalgamation. The more I think about it, the more shoes have this way of putting their foot in every door of life, even my shoddy attempt at a pun. Am I just the extension of it, one little toe in a shoe-fetish world?

I began shopping for shoes online directly from obscure, good-quality brands. I thoroughly researched various shoe construction methods, different grades of leather quality, and so on. All this means is I can now have a reasonably intelligent conversation with a cobbler. I eventually ended up on eBay after ordering a few pairs that did not fit one too many times.

There is a history of an eBay addiction in my family. My father is a great patron of the site, which may be because eBay still looks like when the internet first began. This addiction began quite innocently with stamps (who would deny a father these little anachronisms?) but soon morphed into something much more sinister. We have a collection of little fat Michelin Man figurines at home, a surprisingly diverse set of British royal family coronation mugs, and an old brandy bottle with a dancing ballerina inside it. In the greater scheme of things, it isn’t really that bad. Some people spend their money on whiskey and women, to quote John Lee Hooker.

eBay is a virtual second-hand store with amusing usernames and cryptic descriptions of mostly legal items. Just let your mind wander, and there’ll be something to satisfy you. Which includes barely-used shoes at a fraction of their price. But my initial enthusiasm soon dissolved into that familiar shame upon receiving yet another pair of ill-fitting shoes. I just can’t seem to get the right size. A bad joke told ad infinitum. My stint on eBay ends with the vague memory of cursing myself for having sasquatch feet. The next stage in my grief cycle was the somewhat justified anger towards obscure eBay sellers.

Surely, they must be conspiring against me, along with those money-hungry cobblers. Stardustfeet85, you promised me the most comfortable shoes and, in that sweet lilt of an AI-generated product description, that I could ‘upgrade my style’ with this purchase. What happened to that sacred connection between buyer and seller? And so I resorted to my democratic right – a scorching review:

“Dear Stardustfeet85,

I am saddened by the false advertisement of your product. I have spent many a night dreaming of these shoes. Your prices gave me hope, however slim. To deny a foot its earthly pleasures is akin to denying a man’s soul heaven. I am beyond anger; now I only pity you.”

Without hesitation, I gave him four stars for his service. That’ll teach him.