9:02 am: I up my shoe size on all my searches by half a size, in order to ____________ the pool of available work shoes at a reasonable price. This act moves me into an entirely new dimension of shoes. I suddenly remember that there’s a chance I did this the last time I bought shoes, and it didn’t work out too well. I rush to closet to investigate further.

9:04 am: My suspicions are proven right: I did indeed buy shoes one half size larger. It proved to be not entirely disastrous – after all, I did wear them almost every day for months because they were the perfect work shoe. However, they kept falling off my feet, which is a problem when you’re trying to run up and down the hallways like a maniac. Still, it might be worth it – I decide to go for it, given myh real shoe size is the most common size in the entire world, or so it seems, and all the decent shoes are always sold out by the time I get around to trying to find any.