I was looking for sale boots on the Sierra website, and I thought I had hit pay dirt when I found a pair of short black Dansko boots. I was excited to try them on when they came in the mail.
Inside the box there was a handwritten post-it note: L boot is a 38, R is a 39. I assume it was from a disgruntled former customer and not from a Sierra warehouse employee announcing "you get what you get and you don't get upset," but I suppose I can't be sure. The two boots were indeed two different sizes.
Here is a weird coincidence: my right foot is slightly larger than my left foot. I'd never known this until I did a shoe-fitting at my local running store a few years back, but apparently it's pretty common for feet to be somewhat asymmetrical. It's hardly ever noticeable; I really only feel it when I climb, because climbing shoes are supposed to be skin-tight. If you go to a climbing gym you'll see that the hardcore climbers slip in and out of flip-flops between routes. Serious climbing shoes are seriously uncomfortable. Even in my not-serious climbing shoes, my right foot always complains before my left foot.
Despite knowing that I have lopsided feet, I tried the boots on assuming it was ridiculous to think about keeping them. But is it ridiculous? I can't quite decide.
I should tell you that I always hate returning things, and that I hate the post office in December with the fieriest loathing. I know with the grownup part of my brain that I should not keep something that doesn't fit just because I don't want to take it to the post office.
The difference between a size 38 and a size 39 is only 0.8 cm -- less than a third of an inch. If I hadn't seen the note, I'm not certain I would have picked up on the difference. They don't look different, and they don't really feel different. Maybe the right boot feels a wee smidge wider? (I used to prefer narrow-width shoes, back before I carried five babies to full term and beyond, and maybe my feet are still on the narrower side of average.)
Here, let me show you a picture:
You'd never look at that and say to yourself, "Why is Jamie wearing boots in two different sizes?" -- would you? (Also, aren't they cute boots?)
They feel fine for walking around the house. But the whole reason I wanted to find well-made boots on sale is that I walk a lot, all year round. My watch tells me that so far this week I've averaged >12K steps per day. I can't really tell if the larger boot will cause me blisters and unhappiness unless I cover some ground in it, and I don't know if they will let me return the boots once I've covered some ground in them.
So tell me: what would you do? And do you have any paired body parts that are slightly asymmetrical?
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