In 1986 I had a chance to travel to a very hot climate, where I would need comfortable sandals to fit my VERY WIDE and large feet. The cobbler’s shop in the mall had very nice custom sandals, simple and sturdy – perfect, I thought, since it’s so hard for me to find any shoes, much less sandals that will be comfortable in heat. They made an outline of my feet and promised the sandals in 10 days.
Time went by, and went by some more, so finally I called and asked what was going on. They said, “Oh – we didn’t make them. We thought there must be some mistake in the tracing. It seems impossibly wide. Can you please come down to the shop?” So I did, and lo and behold, my triangular foot fit their triangular tracing perfectly. They were embarrassed (so was I) and they hustled to make the sandals before I had to leave town. Those were wonderful and comfortable sandals. I ended up giving them away to a woman who had big feet like mine who had no access to big, wide shoes down in that country. It was a gift of “solidarity of the big-feet women.”