To Full-Service Shoe Stores

As a kid, buying saddle oxfords for school, one pair to last the year, we would go to the Stride Rite store in Northpark mall. The salesperson would take out the metal measuring plate and size us up, calibrate the width. “Stand up straight,” she’d say, holding my foot in place.

She’d bring out the shoes and pull up the little stools with the ramp. She’d set down all the boxes, one a size too big, one size too small and one just right. Just to compare. She’d set one on her knee and lace it up, pulling them up and even. She’d put the shoe on the little ramp and I work my foot in while she eased it in with a shoehorn. I’d walk around a bit and my mom would make sure I had at least one thumb’s width worth of space to grow.

Source: The Linen Lavoir

 We leave with colorful helium “Stride Rite” balloons tied to our wrists and fresh shoes in bags.

I had forgotten about those trips. I’ve grown so accustomed to the serve-yourself shoe bars of the big box stores, the ones where I scan the rows of boxes looking for my size. I like these stores for the low-pressure shopping experience. I can roam up and down the aisles as much as I like, try on this or that without holding anyone up. No salesperson is sitting on a little stool waiting for me to decide if I actually like the heel this high, the leather this shiny. Maybe? I don’t know. Shoes are complicated and take time. The look from the side, from the front. The fit at the toe, at the heel. It can take hours.

But after looking for months for a simple low-heeled black shoe that will work with dress pants or a skirt and having no luck, I decide to hit the pricier store. If I don’t buy shoes again for 5 years, it will be worth it, I tell myself.

They have a silver tray of cookies. An urn of hot water and a selection of teas. The customers are many, but the selection is few, which, as it turns out, is not a bad thing. I gather shoe samples and when a salesperson asks to help, I let them tumble out of my arms onto the seat and say, “Work shoe, almost flat, black. No ribbons. No bows. Not too casual.”

“I’ll bring a selection,” he says.

And for three minutes and 27 seconds, I sit. I watch people, some turning a shoe over, looking at the price, putting the shoe back, looking at the next. Some are clearly looking for the shoe to inspire them in some way, that crosshatch woven leather, that dangerously narrow wedge. One woman keeps asking her friend, “Do you like these? What do you think?” The friend is, apparently, very easy to please and therefore, no help at all. She is eating the cookies.

He comes back with seven shoe boxes. He pulls up the little stool and reaches down for my foot and takes out the shoehorn. I work my way through all seven pairs in less than two minutes.

“Too casual. Too high. Too tight at the toe, too wide at the heel. Too sparkley. The edges feel rough. I could never walk around campus in these.”

“Let me try again,” and he disappears.

I do not mean to be difficult. And every time I reject a pair, I decide when the right one comes I will pay a little bit more for all the work I am making him do. I will try on every appropriate shoe in the store, and I will not leave empty handed.

I do not eat the cookies.