If The Shoe Fits ...

This segment was originally broadcast on March 20, 2005.

The following is a weekly 60 Minutes commentary by CBS News Correspondent Andy Rooney.

I was getting dressed the other morning and I got thinking about how bad shoes are. I wish our smartest people would stop reinventing our computers every three days, and pay attention to something basic like shoes.

You see people walking along the street all the time, and you know darn well they're wearing shoes that don't fit.

No one has two feet that are exactly the same, either, but when you buy a pair of shoes, they're both the same. Seems wrong.

Who are shoe stores trying to kid, making women think this is the shape of their feet? These shoes aren't the shape of anyone's foot.

Recently, the people who make sneakers have been doing a better job than the people who make shoes. It used to be that you wore sneakers in the gym; now people wear them everywhere.

The shoe business must be good anyway though, because we all buy more shoes than we wear. We keep looking for that perfect pair. Our closets runneth over with shoes. I must have 20 pairs of shoes I don't wear, but they cost so much, I can't stand to throw them out.

Whatever made me think I'd wear these? These seemed like a good idea when I bought them, but I've worn them about three times in 10 years.

All these shoes are either funny-looking, or they don't fit. These are a size 8-1/2, but my feet are a size 9-1/2. How come I'm not as tall as I used to be, but my feet are longer?

I never understood why my shoe size is 9-1/2 and my sock size is 11, either.

You'd think short shoes would be cheaper than long ones, too -- not as much in them - but they aren't. People with short feet are subsidizing people with long feet. It seems unfair.

Someone tried it years ago, but I think eventually all shoe stores will have something you put your feet into that measures them and then instantly forms a pair of shoes that fit your feet perfectly.

Of course, there's a problem with that, too. Years ago, I went to a man in New York who made a cast of my feet and then made shoes to fit them. Murray's Space Shoes, they were called. These fit my feet, but they are so funny-looking, I don't ever wear them.

We had a summer camp on a lake when I was a kid, and of all the things I miss most about not being young, I don't go barefoot in the summer anymore.

Written By Andy Rooney