I hate spending money, especially at this time when prices are rising more than the blood pressure of a 70-year-old going bungee jumping for the first time.
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But when I am shopping I generally like to support local businesses as much as possible, however the desire to save money sometimes has me checking out my options.
So when it came to buying shoes that would be worn only a few times, I decided to check online.
Big mistake.
Growing up, show sizes were a pretty simple affair, and we all had a pretty clear idea of what sizes we needed to fit our feet.
So looking online I'm suddenly confronted with people advertising shoes sometimes under the UK size, sometimes the US size which is different to the UK size, or even possibly the European size or a size in centimetres.
There are also French sizes and Japanese sizes, just to add a little more confusion into the mix.
And it's all for shoes invariably made in Cambodia, Malaysia, China or somewhere else far, far away from the people insisting on having their own method of measuring feet and shoes.
But why all this confusion?
Why can't we all just settle on one system going forward?
It makes me wonder if feet are different in different parts of the country.
Or is everyone so caught up in believing that their system is the best, that they can see no reason to abandon it and adopt something that is universally accepted.
Of course, shoes are not the only thing impacted by this approach.
Take dress sizes, for example, where the USA goes down to a size zero - which is a size six here in Australia, a size four in the UK, a 32 in France and an XS in other places.
Fair dinkum, it is any wonder we seem to live in a state of constant confusion?
But isn't there some sort of international court or agency that is trying to sort this thing out, so that sizes are the same across the globe?
Given the power of the internet, and the strength of online shopping for items coming from a range of different countries, I'm surprised there isn't already a strong push for uniformity.
Or at least making sure uniforms are all measured by the same sizing system.
Until then, the local businesses where I can try things on will be the best fit.
