wandering 7Calles district looking for shoes

Shopping for shoes has never been fun considering I have a right foot size 4 1/2 and a left foot size 6 1/2. Usually when looking for a new outfit, I have to buy the shoes first and then can get the rest. Most of the time I just wear cloddy black tie shoes that accomodate my leg braces, but which certainly are not feminine or elegant, even if they are recently polished! However, there are times, I decide to liberate my feet and go with a simple flat or sandal for short periods of time.
Yesterday, I decided it was time to try to find a simple flat to wear to both receptions, so black would have to be the color.
I headed to a popular shopping district which has several shoe 'stores' and several less expensive shoe 'stands.' The problem is explaining to the employee that I must have two pairs of shoes, exactly alike in the two sizes. Not too complicated? Well, usually it is. The clerk will often bring me two pairs of the same style but of different colors, or two pair of the same color, but different styles. It doesn't seem to matter how carefully I try to explain myself.
I had almost given up.
Outside a open-air shoe stand a young girl was dancing to samba music blaring from the small portable stereo that was, I suppose, the attention getting, customer grabbing technique for the business. Maybe she wasn't the clerk, but just someone who liked the music, I thought, after looking at several pairs and no one coming forward to assist me. Finally I asked her if she was working or just dancing in the street. She quickly, then, changed her activity and helped me look. Yes a nice size 5 black right, but the left a different model... How could she think I'd use two different styles? I know I had explained it carefully to her. I was about to give up, since i had been shopping around the area for more than two hours - and at that in simple sandals since you can't very well try on shoes wearing full leg braces, when I saw the solution. She had brought me two pairs of basic black falts with different toe decorations.....just take the shoes to the corner where there are several cobblers benches set up to make on-the-spot repairs and have them switch the bows to the correct shoes~ So paying about 30 cents to the cobbler I had the shoes I needed. And they were less than I had budgeted to pay, so with a feeling of acomplishment I treated myself to some cunape and empanadas de queso for afternoon tea. Ah, feet up, shoes off, rest for the weary shopper!