Have My Feet Grown?

Have my feet grown? I force my swollen feet into my usual size 8 shoe and walk with such a limp that the salesgirl even laughs. Do feet actually GROW? I ask without looking at her face in the event we both chuckle. I anticipated the usual no reply because I actually did ask this question before and the response was no, so I again expected a negative response! Well, to my surprise, I got a YES, they do grow a bit as we get older, it has to do with gravity and weight! I was compelled to look up at the face giving me a university level answer to such a stupid question. With shame written all over my face, I simply said in my most modest voice, OH! could you please get me a size 9?

The salesgirl gave me a beaming smile and rushed off to find me a larger size. I could not help feeling sorry for myself thinking that I was literally growing bigger in every direction. I was fatter but not really fat, I was wider but not that wide and my hands even got large....oh my, this was a bad day, and now I have bigger feet! I felt like a hunched back land worker from Corsica having picked tomatoes all my life in my bare feet and hands. Did I not look like a city gal no longer? Was I becoming an older and wider version of myself? Was I beginning to fall apart at the seams of my very own flesh? I had horrific visions of me looking like the biggest woman on this planet waving at the cheering crowd rolling down Fifth Avenue or Oxford Street.

What had happened to my slender, slight tiny self wearing tiny shoes and tiny clothes and looking tiny all the time? What had I become? Will the real ME please come out? At this point the salesgirl came out with what looked like a bigger box and removed the biggest shoes I had ever seen in my life. Without a word or even a slight gulp, I ran out of the shoe store as if I had left something urgent in the car. Shame wore me like a hat, a wider, fatter and bigger hat that is!

I sat in my car thinking about the event that had just taken place. I felt a bit embarrassed and thought to myself how silly this entire situation was! I had to act and behave like a normal grown women even if I had grown more horizontal than vertical. I rushed back to the shoe store with my tight upper lip and said, show me all the shoes you got in a size 9. I sat down with pride hiding my shame from the previous ordeal. Unfortunately, the same sales help came up to me and offered four different pairs of size 9 shoes. I had forgotten something in my car, I whispered, half sweating and half laughing nervously, and had to rush out to get it and then return back here! The salesgirl just looked at me in a knowing manner that I had lied myself out of this one. And yes, I will take all the shoes, gift wrap please!

Silence took over the room and it seemed as if all eyes were zeroed in on me and my many boxes of oversized shoes. I paid with my credit card what seemed to be an amount for a luxury day spa in Switzerland, including the flight. What the heck am I going to do with all these shoes?

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