are you sure?

a few months ago i was wandering around the work neighborhood with a work colleague, who was in the market for a watch for her father, good daughter that she is.

on our way back to the office, we happened past Kenneth Cole, and decided that his store would probably have a selection of watches worthy of pa's day. we went in and proceeded up the stairs, found a nice selection of watches and chose 2 that dad might like. while the purchase was occurring, i noticed some nice-looking suede flip-flops that i instantly coveted. being in the men's department, i asked "Do you have these flip-flops in a narrower size?"

sadly, but not surprisingly, the answer was no.

we proceeded downstairs to exit the store, but of course my eye was caught by more shoes, this time in the women's department where my question was an altogether different one, "excuse me, do you carry size 12?" i asked, expecting a "no" possibly a strange look, nothing more, nothing less.

"women's?" the salesman queried

"yes" i replied, wondering if i looked particularly male that day.

"are you the size 12?" he queried again, particular emphasis on the "YOU"

"yes" i replied, becoming a bit confused, but still awaiting the standard "sorry! no size 12's here!" response i was accustomed to.

"are you sure?" he asked me, with a slight tilt of the head.

many thoughts ran through my head. was i wearing shoes on my feet? was he just fucking with me? how do i respond to such a question?

perhaps the look of confusion on my face led him to believe that i wasn't sure, perhaps this was his maniacal plan all along, but i realized he was indeed not fucking with me when he pulled out the metal foot measurer gadget, the Brannock Device that i had not seen in well-nigh 15 years. not since the day my foot finally topped out, and i breathed a small sigh of relief that my boat feet seemed to have stopped expanding.

he put the Device down on the floor and looked up at me expectantly.

"are you kidding?" i asked, still not convinced that we were going to go down this road, that the knowledge of my own giant foot size was in question.

"let's just give it a shot" he said, and looked at me skeptically, as if for years i had been perpetrating a lie, and here he was to put a stop to it.

i did what anyone would do. i took my bigger foot out (the left one) and slapped that baby down in the Brannock. "it's on" i breathed to myself, "it's go time"

"wow" he said quietly as he moved the width and length bars into place, "12 and a half, triple narrow"

i suppressed the desire to gloat, i simply said "yes, i know"

he stood up from his one-knee bend, and pointed to a button-adorned ballet flat "i have that in a size 11" he said expectantly

i was taken aback. "you just measured my foot" i said

"it has a wide toe box" he said, looking straight into my eyes

"i'm a twelve and a half!" i pleaded, leaving off the "triple narrow" hoping to get some kind of recognition as to the ludricrous nature of this conversation, in fact this entire interaction

"it fit one of my customer's who is an 11 and a half" he said in complete seriousness.

i couldn't take it any more, i felt stunned and confused "yeah, i'll come back" i said and turned to walk out the door.

my bystander coworker said "what the hell just happened?" as she followed me out