I'm not sure I have one story that stands out as being particularly disastrous, but I have numerous memories of wearing shoes that ended up chewing holes into my feet. One such example was at work a couple years ago, where I was helping out at a company event. For some reason, the reasonably comfortable Nine West pumps I was wearing became incredibly uncomfortable that day, and started rubbing "hot spots" on the side of my pinkie toe within an hour. I had to duck out during my lunch break to run down to the nearest place that sold open toe shoes, since by that time I had open sores on both of my feet and could not possibly wear closed-toe shoes.
I also used to have a lot of trouble with my hiking boots, which were actually pretty expensive shoes. For some reason they made the boots with a thick seam running horizontally at the back of the ankle, which never failed to create enormous blisters when I wore them. After years of failure to combat blisters with moleskin and other blister-preventative treatments, I took them to REI, who suggested that I use SmartFeet inserts to see if slightly changing the height of my heel inside the shoe would relive the pressure. Amazingly, it actually worked!

My mother has a pretty funny story, and she's such a good sport, she wouldn't mind my telling it here.

My mother has limited closet space for her shoes so she rotates them. At the beginning of each summer, she puts away her winter boots and takes out the summer sandals from the storage. Early last summer, the whole family went to my nephew's swimming competition. My mom put on her cork slides which were seeing the light of day for the first time that year. Throughout the event, she started commenting that her shoes were feeling like they were coming a little loose but she couldn't quite figure out what was wrong. Finally, towards the end, the sole of one pair practically ripped apart into two! My guess is that the cork had been somehow damaged due to humidity, temperature change, etc. My mom had to practically limp to the car, dragging her right foot behind her, since she didn't dare lift it from the ground.:) It was a pretty funny scene. My mom has a good sense of humor, though, so she found it as amusing as we did.:)

Oh! I do have a memory that involves crummy shoes, but it wasn't really the shoes' fault in this case.

I was a bridesmaid for a friend's wedding, and the groom's mother kindly paid for the bridal party to get manicures or pedicures. It was at a mall I hadn't been to before that has a large, open parking lot without many landmarks - just a series of long, un-numbered rows.
Well, I cannot keep polish on my fingers chip-free to save my life, so unwisely I opted for a pedicure - unwise only because I'd never had one before, and I have TERRIBLY ticklish feet, so the whole procedure (except for the part where they actually painted my nails) was really pretty excruciating. Being my first pedicure, I also hadn't got the memo that you were supposed to bring your own thong sandals to wear after the appointment, so they gave me a pair of those flimsy foam thong sandals to wear out to my car - which SHOULD have been fine.

So I leave the mall and start heading back to my car. And it's not there. I walk down the next row in the area where I thought I'd parked - still not there. It escalated to the point where I was walking up and down rows in these flimsy foam shoes pressing the "lock" button on my keypad in the hopes that my car would honk at me, and I was getting terribly lost and starting to wonder if my car had been stolen. And it was also one of those rare days where it was about 85 degrees. Well, after a few minutes of this, the flimsy temporary shoes ripped in half so I ended up walking around barefoot in the parking lot until I finally, FINALLY found my car. Needless to say, the pedicure was totally ruined by that point!

I should add that my poor mom has very fussy feet. At one time, she actually had a condition (I can't remember the name) that caused her to get sudden, unpredictable pain that caused a burning sensation in her toes which made it impossible for her to tolerate any type of shoe. Needless to say, during that time we concluded many excursions by my mom having to buy a cheap pair of flip flops just to be able to walk back to our transport or hotel.

Ugh ugh ugh! Yesterday on the way home from work I saw a girl tottering around in a pair of tan 5" stiletto laceup booties. Keep in mind we are still recovering from Wednesday/Thursday's big storm. The snow is melting and flooding certain streets (there is a huge un-passable puddle on 5th ave that has affectionately been dubbed "The Lake") and there is slush and patches of ice everywhere. She was with 2 guys who had to walk probably half as fast as they usually walk so she could keep up with them, and every time she came to a patch of ice or slush, she would cling desperately to one guy or the other. It was such an awkward and painful dynamic to watch. On top of that, even when she was on solid ground, she could not seem to straighten her knees.

To add insult to injury, she didn't even look good. She had her pants cuffed mid-calf, exposing her white athletic socks.

Ha! Maya, your story reminds me of a former coworker of mine who swore up and down that the best shoes to wear in the snow and ice were stiletto boots because the heels acted like spikes in the ice. Ummm... yeah... she got stuck a lot and still slipped all over the place. My good friend lived on the same street as her, and whenever they would walk home together, my friend would complain about how it had taken her twice as long to get home as normal because stiletto girl had to walk sooooo slowly!

Thank you all for humoring me! Such well-told horror stories! Maya, there are women here who do that as well, and sometimes in open-back or open-toed stiletto shoes. Heck, the teens even wear flip-flops in winter sometimes. I can't imagine how they walk without getting direct snow-to-skin contact. SHUDDER.

My husband is known to say, "the things you girls do for shoes!" My worst shoe stories involve hiking boots or ski boots, but I have a story like Rute's: At an interview for my second job out of grad school, I somehow ripped almost the entire length of the center back seam (about 8 inches) of my suit trousers, just as I was checking in with the receptionist. She must have seen in my face that something was terribly wrong, so she asked whether I needed to use the restroom. I said yes, and do you have a few safety pins? Magically she did (only 2) and I spent the next 5 minutes placing them as strategically as I could. The receptionist was then kind enough to advise me whether there was any gaping when I walked, since my suit jacket was short! It was a cheap suit and my underwear would definitely have been showing! She said no, but I never knew if she lied or not. The men must not have noticed because I did get offered the job (although I accepted a different one.) Needless to say, that suit did not live to see another job interview!