@bennyjohnson Vice President JD Vance just dropped a hilarious Oval Office story leaving the entire room cracking up. President Trump glanced over the Resolute Desk at VP Vance and Secretary Marco Rubio and said, “You guys have shitty shoes.” Right then and there, Trump pulled out a shoe catalog and gifted them 4 pairs of shoes. 🤣 Wait until the end of the story… “Today I'm in the Oval Office with the President and Marco Rubio, and we're talking about something really important. The President kind of holds up his hand and says, ‘no, no, no, hold on a second. There's something much more important. Shoes.’” “He peers over the resolute desk and he says, Marco, JD, you guys have shitty shoes.” “He goes out and grabs a catalog. There happens to be another politician in the room I won't say who, and you'll find out why in a second. And he actually runs us through this incredible shoe catalog. The President is gifting us with four pairs of shoes.” “He says, Marco, what's your shoe size? And Marco's apparently an eleven and a half. He says, JD, what's your shoe size? My shoe size is 13. I asked this politician, who I won't embarrass, what his shoe size is, and he says, seven. The President leans back in his chair and says, you know you can tell a lot about a man by his shoe size.”
♬ original sound - Benny Johnson
१८ मार्च, २०२६
"Men tend to seize on the largest size they ever were at any point. If a man wore a size 11 athletic cleat in high school..."
"... he’ll forever be convinced he’s an 11, not the 10 he truly needs in a dress shoe.' 'It’s a macho thing,' agreed... the owner... a high-end shoe store in Chicago. 'It’s still based on that whole your-shoe-size-is-your-package-size thing.'"
The Trump connection is not forced. It's the reason the issue is in the news. JD Vance has been telling the story of Trump asking men their shoe size and saying "You know you can tell a lot about a man by his shoe size":
पोस्ट्स
७९ टिप्पण्या:
Cmon... fess up.
Begley, Dave or is it Mike?, meade... tell us your numbers, fellas. Lol
This will make for an interesting post. 🤔
Shoe size. Hand size. So many tells.
I don't think feet get smaller as you age.
“Act your age not your shoe size.”
- Prince
This is just silly. Sizes are not consistent between manufacturers or shoe types and are just the starting point for finding something that fits. My flip flops are size 10, hockey skates are 7 1/2 and my tennis shoes typically run between 8 1/2 and 9 1/2.
I, for one, appreciate a chief executive who can bond with his subordinates using both surprise gifts and slightly risque humor. And if the unnamed politician was that asshole from Ireland making fun of him was entirely appropriate.
it IS amazing how different differnt shoes are.
i've had size 9.5's that fit good, and 11's that were tight..
that were the Same model, from the same company.
Plus, it's MUCH MORE possible to wear shoes that are too large, than too small. If i'm buying a new shoe, i start at 11, and work my way down (or up.. in Ecco shoes i'm a 45 (11.5)
Perhaps that's why some shoe brands differ by an entire number (e.g., 11 vs. 12), but fit the same.
Years ago I read that so many women wanted to be "36D - 24 - 36" that bras in several different actual sizes were marked "36D". Gotta try 'em on to know the true size.
Believe the number on the tag, not your eyes. We can see that your feet/bra/hat size is HUGE.
Jokes are so much funnier when people explain them.
Feet I think get fatter and flatter as you age. At least mine have.
If I could get shoes that actually fit my feet, they would be a 13 8E. This is actually just a guess because the widest shoe I ever purchased was a 6E and it was still too tight (Hitchcock Shoes sells them). For the past 6-years I only wear Xero "barefoot" shoes size 14 with a wide toe box. It's still a little confining, but better than the popular brands of wide shoes.
Now you know why I'm a cocky asshole.
I have concocted a conspiracy theory about shoe size.
I suspect some brands have gradually jiggered their sizing so a guy who always wore a 9 1/2 wears an 11 in their brand. The guy will like having to ask for, buy and be able to say he wears an 11 so he'll stick with that brand over brands he wears a 9 1/2 in.
I don't know what size of shoe Lee Harvey Oswald wore.
Vance relayed this story during a speech several months ago, so it did not involve the Irish guy.
A much better question is why women buy shoe sizes that are too small for them.
Men wish they were bigger, and women wish they were smaller?
We're not the sex that puts painful shoes on their feet. Fix your own house, feminist NYT!
Men who obsess about Bigfoot.
Women who obsess about small feet.
One is funny and the other is not funny. Look in the mirror, NYT. The monster is in the house!
The key point in the article is that men think they need a larger size shoe than they do because they are going by the fit of sneakers and not dress shoes.
A secondary point is that they want to say their shoe size is larger than it is because people make the assumption about penis size. It's interesting that Trump turned that back on Rubio who is stuck wearing the shoes Trump bought for him which are too big.
I don't find Vance's interest in telling and retelling this story too charming.
My feet are 9EEE according to the standard shoe measuring thing, which has a name I forget and am too lazy at the moment to look up.
Florsheim 9EEEEE leave room for my toes to wiggle in the toebox, They're the size the local Mennonite store had- they didn't have the 9EEE in stock.
In every other brand seems the width on a label means absolutely nothing. Seriously. They're mostly made overseas-and quality control in non-existent. When New Balance was made here in the USA I could mail order them and they would fit. No more.
I currently wear 10 extra wide Skechers- one size too big- for walking around and everyday use. Walking around means 4-5 miles on the hiking trail. I wouldn't want to run in them as my toes would jam into the front with every step. But for walking they're fine. My toes aren't squashed together. They are in a size 9 extra wife which, BTW, USED TO FIT! Before their quality control went to hell.
I was wearing size 10 sneakers when I showed up to boot camp. Going through the line in boot camp my feet were measured and the fitter yelled back- "8 wide". I didn't know shoes came in widths until just then. The stores my mother took me too if I complained the shies were too tight simply put me in a larger shoe- in length. As a BTW- as you get older, especially if you're on your feet a lot, you feet get bigger. My 8EE measurement on the shoe thingy has grown to 9EEE over the years.
I suspect the reality is- too many men- and women- are wearing shoes too small for them. As in too narrow, not too long. I've seen many men in barefoot places like swimming pools and the shore with the pinky toe bent over the next one from jamming their feet into "fashionable" rather then "comfortable" shoes.
"It's interesting that Trump turned that back on Rubio..."
Because, long ago, Rubio used that hand size/penis size assumption on Trump.
Shoes that are too small are ridiculously painful to wear. Plus, they would create all sorts of issues with your skeletal well-being. No sane person would do that. Now, they can say their shoe size is smaller, but actually wearing them is fake news imho.
Women spend too much time and money on shoes. The sexiest shoes on a woman are sneakers.
"Spiros Pappas said...
I don't think feet get smaller as you age."
This has been my experience as well. I wore a 13 or maybe 13.5 in High School and my early 20s. Now I wear a 15. I suspect a 14.5 would be a better fit, but after size 13 the half sizes disappear.
The premise here is false, IMO. Buying the correct size shoe is hard. Size "X" can vary greatly, based on the manufacturer, and it's hard to know how a new shoe will feel one broken-in. A shoe that is too tight is far worse than one that is too loose, and so men err on the side of bigger shoes.
Big nose
Big toes
Fire hose
"Spiros Pappas said...
I don't think feet get smaller as you age."
True, but they -- at least mine -- get wider. Sometimes I need to go up a 1/2 or 1 full size to get the proper width when "wide" sizes are not on offer. Life is tough.
I recall a previous Althouse post about men's shoes, asking why so many older men were wearing New Balance shoes. I explained in comments then that the brand had shoes in wide sizes, which suited us fatties with swollen feet. As for women's shoes, Steve Martin's classic short story "Cruel Shoes" covers that topic quite well.
Does anyone remember the joke that got Agriculture Secretary Earl "Rusty" Butz fired in 1976?
Ever since men's shoes (and especially tennis/athletic ones) started being manufactured in Asian countries it seems they became noticeably narrower for any given length. So getting a longer shoe size to allow it to flatten out with use and become more comfortable to wear became a workable choice and not a vanity decision.
Now let's have an article about the mathematical mystery of women's dress and pant sizes.
And I note that Wikipedia says, "The Brannock Device® is the standard foot measuring tool for the world's footwear industry," to assist Gospace above. I, for one, liked the idea (but not the irradiation provided) by the shoe-fitting fluoroscope foot sizers of yesteryear.
Why Do Men Buy Shoes That Are Too Big?
Because it’s easier to tell when the shoe is too small than when it is too large.
Per the top item in Google when asked, Butz was fired for an anti-Black racist joke that went something like "All a colored person wants is (euphemnisms here, he was cruder) satisfying sex, loose shoes and a warm bathroom." What a legacy, much like Carter's brother, famous for promoting booze and urinating on an airport runway in view of the press and public.
God keep my jokes in my head, and from having a prostate moment in public.
Life is too short to spend in uncomfortable shoes. Footwear manufacturers are inconsistent in their sizings. That's why many online shoe sites have user feedback concerning whether the shoe model sizing runs large or small.
I've never detected a consistent difference between sizings of dress shoes and athletic shoes. I doubt that one exists.
My ski boots are size 27. It's some weird European measuring system. Metric? Perhaps 27 cm?
@ Enigma
Please don't put my name in comments like that.
What's My Shoe Size?
The key point in the article is that men think they need a larger size shoe than they do because they are going by the fit of sneakers and not dress shoes.
…then the key point in the article is factually incorrect. There is no consistent fit/size correlation either within sneaker brands or dress shoe brands, nor sneaker vs dress shoe sizes that would make the story correct. Someone’s making the incorrect assumption sizes are standardized like bra sizes (sarc on/off)
…my feet got wider with age, too. My penis gets wider the usual way…
Shoe size is the tell in "The Return of Martin Guerre".
Such a pouncy headline for such a benign take. The problem with "size" is there is no industry standard and one manufacturer's 10.5 is another's 11 and a third's 12.5 moreso than "sticking with your highest score" or whatever. That's the dumbest premise in footwear since crocs with sox.
It's some weird European measuring system.
It's called Mondopoint. Ski boot manufacturers needed to standardize sizing for Alpine ski boots so the hard shells of all boots could interface with all makes of ski bindings after the industry evolved away from the old free-heel binding type and started developing the much better and safer release type bindings.
I used to work at a ski resort when I was young. When bindings are mounted to the skis, the distance between the toe and heel components is determined by the skier's boot size.
…women seem to get more jollys over this joke than the guys. All the penis talk I reckon. It’s a busy balls Richter scale 2 for the fellas…
What assurance is garnered by the flip flop?
"I have concocted a conspiracy theory about shoe size.
I suspect some brands have gradually jiggered their sizing so a guy who always wore a 9 1/2 wears an 11 in their brand. The guy will like having to ask for, buy and be able to say he wears an 11 so he'll stick with that brand over brands he wears a 9 1/2 in."
That's basically what is called "vanity sizing" in women's clothes. Women didn't like seeing that they wore size 10 or 12 so, over the years, that became the new 6 and 8.
Over the years, I've found different manufacturers are inconsistent on shoe sizes. For some companies, I wear a size 10. For others, it's 10 1/2, and for others, it's size 11 that fits. There's no substitute for trying on a new pair of shoes and walking a bit before buying them. That's why I doubt I'll ever buy shoes online.
I was always (starting age 16) an 11.5 in Asics running shoes, now I wear 11 in Asics shoes. I thought feet got bigger with age? Now I bought a pair of size 11 loafers on Amazon and they are way too large for my feet. I'm seeing size deflation.
It also kind of sucks to have one foot a different size than the other. Mine are a half, maybe a full size, different.
A bit too big is better than too small.
Re. size: hands/feet/nose(?) By those standards I would need three dicks (Be still, my wild imagination!).
I'm 6'3", have relatively small hands, 14 1/2 feet and, according to an "internal passport" given to me by Bulgarian Immigration years ago, a "normal" nose.
I was a 10 1/2 or 11 when I reached my full height as a teen. Stuck with that size for more than 30 years. I guess you get used to thinking: "tight is right".
One day, waiting for my cousin to pick a pair, I decided to measure my feet - 13 - there's NO way... It was explained to me by one of The Shoe People, that feet usually continue growing.
Happy feet, now! Size still depends. My left likes a 15 best and the right is most at home in a 14.
Also depends on the activity. No way do you want ANY toe contact when hiking a rough 4 or 5,000 ft descent. A little on the "loose" side is great for everyday walking/standing around. Cowboy boots are a whole other country, entirely.
And, if you have any kind of "cool shoe" fetish for shorter duration dress-up. a degree of "tolerence" is acceptable. I got a few that would have drawn envy in better Harlem nightspots in the 40s and 50s :-)
Another Squirrel!
So, clown shoes for the men, and stilts for the women.
Clothes sizing quality control hardly exists anymore (last ten years) I have OTR khakis where the inseam lengths differ by four inches, with the exact same label length, sometimes from the same vendor. Dress shirts at 14.5 neck are all over the place by as much as .75 in either direction.
Fabric quality and feel varies a lot even for the EXACT SAME product, size, model, vendor. I have to keep my athletic socks in matched pairs because they stretch and wear so differently.
I suppose that's what I get for buying from mass vendors instead of on the high street.
Shoes, for me at least, are not so bad. 9.5-10.5 "wide" in any style generally fits more or less.
The podiatrist I saw told be to go up a size. I forget why, but my feet are confortable enough now.
One thing about guys is we're not always sure which size we are for shoes or trousers or anything else. The Amazon era makes that even worse.
Because unlike many women men care about shoe comfort
Right on, Fred.
Note meade is sitting out the comments on this week's old news story that she doesn't like but dragged out into the open, and most of us saw fit to ignore at the time...
Vance isn't as tough and impressive as he thinks, though I'm sure Usha really loves him. Not sure about his sons...
I'm a bit weird. My feet are unusually long and wide for my height. My fingers are average to short for my frame. The third anatomical feature that is the real object of everyone's curiosity when these things are discussed is spot-on the mean for American men.
Maybe the standards are going up. The fitting experts at Army's Basic Training had me at 8.5. In civilian size I was 10. Now I get 11 or 11.5. Don't think my feet are getting bigger with age.
Well you can't fake height. Until age inevitably shortened me a bit (I'm in my 80s) I was 6' 5" tall--and shoe size these days is 15 EEW. From the time I was 11 until I was 15 shoe sizes increased to match my age. All that gave me a swelled head--like Bruce Bochy I wear a size 8 1/4 hat. Trump, Vance, Rubio and all the other little fellas can deal with that.
As long as we are not talking about how Megyn Kelly knows.
…if rehajm is talking about his midwestern in laws he characterizes them as overeducated, sometimes arrogant, and fiercely defensive of their mediocre college teams…
"A secondary point is that they want to say their shoe size is larger than it is because people make the assumption about penis size."
On the infrequent occasions that I encounter a man's shoes before I encounter the man, what I make assumptions about is his height. I suppose that's just because different things are important to different people.
I'm 13 6E which pretty much means NB. The have a wide toebox shoes that lets me get by with 4E. I have big hands too, but my fingers are fretty much normal. I have long palms. Good for sports but I really struggled with golf until I discovered oversized grips.
This is just silly, it's common knowledge feet increase in size with aging. My 1960 (age 18) feet were a 9.5 t0 10, by the early 90's they were 11 t0 11.5, late 90's a 12, now 13.5.
Probably nobody except us Boomers has read The Happy Hooker. The author, writing under the pen name Xaviera Hollander, thought that the length of a man’s erection correlated with the size of his nose. As a professional call girl, she should know. I’ve always wondered whether that belief accounts for so many ancient states defaced by having the nose battered off.
I will just say most often I don't have the option of buying a larger size than what I need.
That's not charming!
But it was funny.
In adulthood I've worn mostly 10.5, performance tennis shoes and dress shoes. Running shoes though, I go a half size up. In recent years, I feel like my feet are getting wider. My theory, as our skin sags with age, our ligaments and tendons in our feet loosen up too.
So I have to go wide with my tennis shoes nowadays ... I'm glad I discovered the Fitville brand. They only make wide shoes. Fair priced, good quality.
Gospace: “ size 9 extra wife”
Great idea! And a 9 is the best balance between comfort and speed. CC,JSM
No one on either side has made much of Trump's gift shoes being $150 plain black cap toe Florsheims. Not even $300 Stacy Adams, Allen Edmonds, or anything else the next rung up the ladder. Basic black $150 shoes. From the guy who almost literally gilds lilies. Almost like he cares more about effectiveness than performative spending. CC, JSM
I have worn a 9.5M (D) throughout adulthood. All my shoes (dress, hiking, running, sandals, etc) are size 9.5.
It is not that I try to be consistent, but I like shoes that fit snug, but comfortable. If I size up, the heels tend to slip and give me blisters. I walk/hike an average of 20-25 miles per week, so a comfortable fit is important.
I also buy fairly expensive shoes because cheap shoes will ruin your feet. I learned that in my 20's with two foot operations. Good shoes tend to be very consistent with sizing. I have never heard of shoe companies that up their sizes for any reason.
New Pebax Superfoam golf shoes dropped today. Size 11. Unfortunately normal toe box so prolly going back…
John Mosby at 1:35 raises an interesting point. It was time to buy "good" business shoes when I summer interned, then got out of law school in 1968. The best shoes I could find at the time were Florsheim Imperial wingtips--just the thing for a young associate in a big law firm. The were good quality -reheeled a couple of times, resoled once. And while I didn't wear them I still had a pair of those shoes in my closet and they were in good shape when they were forty years old.
Somewhere along the line the Imperial line disappeared and Florsheim quality went south--way south. That was true of a lot of the companies that made men's shoes in the USA. I mean you can still buy the shoes with those old brand names on them--but (a) they're not made in the USA anymore; and (b) the quality stinks.
So I was surprised when Trump went for Florsheim's. If he was going to give the troops good shoes he should at least go with Allen Edmonds quality--a couple of hundred bucks or more per pair than the Florsheim's--but an appreciable increase in quality.
Medieval people were really into extreme shoes. Lots of kings had to regulate the footwear of their Teddy Boy populace.
-In 1367, King Charles V of France explicitly banned the wearing of shoes shaped like penises.
-Shoes seen as demonic and vain were blamed for making men "effeminate" and bringing the plague to London.
-In 1366, King Edward III of England banned long, pointy shoes called poulaines because they were so long people couldn't walk properly—or kneel to pray. Some were over 2 feet long.
Among my old man infirmities is neuropathy in the feet, so rather than shoes I wear sandals, sometimes even with socks. The object is to allow my poor oxygen-starved toes a bit of breathing room. Here in Las Vegas it's unlikely I will have to walk through snow or rain.
The real reason men do this is because we don't like solving problems twice. If it was good enough before, it's good enough now. There are unsolved problems to think about.
Toe freedom and foot comfort. Reason enough to buy shoes one-half size up from supposed true shoe size.
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...
Such a pouncy headline for such a benign take. The problem with "size" is there is no industry standard
Absolutely untrue. There is an industry standard- measured by the Brannock Device® (Thanks Mikee!). Problem is, no quality control to ensure the shoes conform to that standard- especially in regards to width.
Honestly, I took a cloth tape measure into a shoe store one time and measured Nike and New Balance shoes labeled 9D and 9EEEE or EEW. And the sole was exactly the same width. And the distance across the top measured from the last to the last and any other measurement you could thing of- were exactly the same in the brand. They were identically sized shoes in every measurable way- labelled with different widths. Now if I could get a lawyer to file a class action suit against all the manufacturers for the value of time wasted by wide footed people trying on mislabeled shoes... I mean, there have been sillier lawsuits filed, haven't there?
I mentioned before I bought my Florsheim dress shoes- plain toed Oxfords, apparently the same as Trumps, at the local Mennonite store. The quality and sizing are fine and fit according to what my feet measure. Interestingly, the store has a whole bunch of brands I don't see anywhere else, and they stock every size in wide and extra-wide and wider then that widths. I asked the young man who worked there about that. Seems most of the Amish and Mennonites- their primary customers, wear wider shoes. And you can get any color you want in stock- as long as you want black. I asked about ordering the shoes in brown since their prices are less then Amazon's. If their distributor had them- would be about a month, elsewise might be 3-4 months...
I had a friend who told me a story about her father and how he got caught having an affair with a another woman. He had bought a pair of nice shoes as a gift for his mistress who lived in Germany. And while he was packing for a trip his wife discovered these shoes. Since they were much larger than her size he was immediately busted. From then on my friend's mother referred to his mistress as "Hilda Bigfoot."
YouTube keeps offering me Judith Butler with the theory that the significance of the Epstein Files is forming networks of unbridled masculinity.
My theory is one-note pony.
You can tell a lot by someone who is obsessed with shoe size. I'm not sure what, but it is probably stupid.
Julie Roberts: You have big feet.
Hugh Grant: Yes. Yes, always have had.
J: You know what they say about men with big feet.
H: No. What's that?
J: Uh, big feet, large... shoes.
Notting Hill (1999)
Trump's attractiveness to the opposite sex has more to do with his bank account size and the limo he picks you up in than feet. Shoe size stuff is for one night stand tier relationships.
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