“Excuse me-“ I ask the middle-aged Chinese saleswoman, “Can I get these two pairs in a size six?”

Taking the shoes from me, she peeks inside. “I look for these,” she says of the larger shoe. But, holding up the smaller, she tells me to “try these on, they are like size six.”

Wait.

Like a size six!?

I sit down in the plush cushion of the shoe store – it had a nondescript name. Something along the lines of “MALL NAME shoes”. But, if I can find some goddamn walking shoes, I really don’t care. As the saleswoman is in the back, searching for a pair of size-six Privos for me, I look at the label of the black Clark sneaker I have in my hand.

It’s a seven.

I pull it on anyways, only to find that it’s too long (surprise!) The woman comes back out to tell me she can’t find anything smaller than a seven in the cute Privos. She asks me how the Clarks I’m holding fit, and as I tell her they don’t, I can hear mom chuckle quietly behind me:

“They…. ‘like’ fit, in that they don’t! At all!”