It’s the shoes. Or, rather, the socks.
When I bought the shoes I customarily wear, I was in the habit of buying Dockers™ socks. They were generally thicker than most other “dress” socks, and if I was lucky I could find the padded dress socks (ones with extra fabric on the soles – heaven if you’ve ever worked retail, trust me). Well, either they’ve stopped making them or Hechts/May/Macy’s stopped carrying them because it’s been exceedingly difficult to find the things, or something comparable. So, I’ve been buying more conventional, thin dress socks the past year or two. Which has meant that my feet tend to slide just enough inside the shoes. Annoying, but not something I thought much of.
Then two days ago I went from wearing an old pair of the thicker socks at work to changing into the thinner ones. Right after I got up to Metro, the heel started throbbing again. Yesterday, dug up thicker socks, no problems. Today, the same – thick socks, no problem. Mo-ther-fuck-er.
Follow-up with the podiatrist tomorrow to confirm (was pre-set, before the revelation), and I sense a lot of sock shopping for me this weekend. Oy.