the world is a cold place for a big-footed woman. after committing the fashion faux pas of wearing sneakers to a job interview, i realized it was time to grow up and get some real shoes. with my sister along for the ride to give fashion advice, i headed out to soho to buy me some classy footgear. unfortunately, this and subsequent trips have brought back some painful repressed memories, and i realized that it wasn't due to fashion preferences that i had given up buying nice shoes. buying shoes when you have big feet is miserable. okay, in the first place i've got very specific tastes when it comes to nicer shoes. in the second place, being very tall (which is often accompanied by having big feet), i'm always looking for the flattest shoes available. so my first challenge is to find the style i want without heels. not easy! it seems every woman in the world wants to be a lot taller than they are except me. sorry. so, say i finally find a really cute pair of shoes, and magically (i'll come back to this later) they are in my size. nice? wrong! i would say about 75% percent of shoes that look cute in a normal size suddenly look hideous when they are a large size. especially when they are flat, as heeled shoes can hide the extreme largeness of a shoe. but you know what? that doesn't even matter, because i rarely even reach that point of the shopping experience. nobody carries shoes over a size ten! and for the nail in the coffin, apparently shoemakers have stopped making half sizes for the bigger-footed women. i'm a ten and a half. okay there, i said it. i'm a monster. oh, but the point is, elevens are too big. i don't even know what i'm supposed to do about this. there are no shoes that fit me. aargh! so, anyone who has resented tall women, now you know how much shit can suck for us. next time, just look over at our giant, ugly shoes and then remember the last time you went shoe shopping, you saw a shoe you liked, and you bought it. damn.