I know I'm even later to the party, but I'm so excited for you! Congratulations!
As a shoe fitter who sells both Danskos and Birkenstocks, the idea of a shoe store trying to use US sizes instead of Euro for them boggles my mind. They don't actually convert nicely, unless you're right in the middle of the size scale! A good rule of thumb is to add 31 to your US women's shoe size, but if you're feet are smaller than a US 7/Euro 38 or bigger than a US 9/Euro 40 then it might not line up so well. I wear a US 6.5 and a Euro 37, but I know that a lot of people who wear a US 6 need to size down to 36 in Euro for the right fit, even when size charts say things like "Euro 36=US 5-5.5" or some such bullshit.
Apparently I have a lot of feelings about converting shoe sizes!
That's a good one! I usually use an old film canister, but if I ever lost it I'd be sunk, because I don't exactly have a bunch of those lying around the apartment here in the year 2015.
So, apparently everyone I know thinks I am a Good Coffee person because they always see me make coffee in either a french press or a little Melitta cone at home, but only my boyfriend and roommate know the truth, which is that I would happily drink cheap coffee made from a super-convenient automatic coffee maker every damn morning if it weren't for the fact that every coffee maker I've had has broken in a different and mysterious way after approximately four months of use. I'm not Cool, I'm just cursed.
My boss is not old at all, but I am realizing that he is sort of our Company Dad. He has strong opinions on socks that slide down in your boots, he thinks it's not only acceptable but positively necessary for our company to "like" its own Facebook posts, and having him around is a bit like having MacGyver around if MacGyver's "fixes" inevitably fell apart after about a week and he kept insisting that he'd "fixed" whatever was broken permanently. I was not at all surprised to discover that each of his children got a carabiner in their stocking last year.
I had actually completely forgotten that I bought and read We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves until I saw another Toastie mention Ape House a couple of pages back and I thought "was that the book with the chimp that I think I loaned someone and never missed? No? What was that?" So thank you for reminding me that I read it, and that it was a book.
I'm Lady Nora, and I'm very late to the thread, but I'd love to become acquainted with some Toastful Fallen Londoners!
I just want to point out that your hypothetical snow tire-loving dad sounds an awful lot like my New England born and raised mom, who had no fewer than four Blazers before they stopped making them (and accused the garage of sabotage when they told her that her perfectly maintained last one wasn't safe to drive anymore), and who won't even consider buying snow tires that aren't Nokians.
As a Vermonter, I feel the need to rep Darn Tough socks. They're just as cozy, soft and warm as Smartwool, but way sturdier, and with a serious lifetime guarantee! Granted, they're not as pretty as Smartwool, but I'll be damned if they're not the coziest socks I've ever put on my feet, and I've never worn out a pair (the same cannot be said for my expensive Smartwool PhD hiking socks).
Once I discovered that if you aren't paying attention and press "5" instead of "7" while dialing the dealer-services number of a major North American shoe company, you actually get one of those pay-by-the-minute sex hotlines. I learned this while the customer for whom I was attempting to order shoes was standing right in front of me, and I had to play it cool as I hung up the phone and she asked, "so, are they available?" It was incredibly hard to keep a straight face, and after she left I had to excuse myself to giggle in the stockroom for a few minutes.
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Contraption