Sometimes I think my mission in life is comic relief disguised as common sense.

As the oil washes up on the Gulf Coast; as the car bombs smolder in Times Square; as tornadoes swirl and floodwaters rush, I am incensed by women’s shoes.

Long ago I decided that high-fashion shoe designers are misogynists. Or orthopedists with six kids to educate at Duke. To keep us hopping they spin on a dime (more like $200) from thick and clunky to lethal dagger-toed stilettos in gaudy colors that look silly on “Sex and the City,” not to mention Katie Couric.

A few have medium heels that slope toward the ground like upended Egyptian columns, with sprained ankle written all over them. Do the physics.

Those aberrations surfaced about five years ago. No sooner did gals learn to spell Manolo Blahnik than designers decided to increase profits by decreasing materials. Anything backless — clogs, slides, thongs, bedroom slippers — were in, no matter that feet slapped against or slid off the sole with every step.

Clogs are good, in their place. I lived in a climate where you needed boots 359 days a year. Houses were built with vestibules for the purpose of exchanging boots for clogs. The best were Dr. Scholl’s with a narrow leather strap buckled over the toes, sculpted arch and thick real-wood soles.

Or, if you were rich, that Swedish brand with two dots over the vowel and a slash through the O.

Speaking of soles, their raw material turned from recognizable leather-like stuff to blobs of silly putty or “composite,” in shoespeak

Then, just as our calf muscles had become properly shortened and our toes pinched into a flying wedge, shoes came tumbling down to a round-tipped ballet flatline. Besides making my pants too long, flat-flats gave the impression of standing in the gutter.

The shock was unwearable.

I may be old but I’m no fogey. Shoes are my thing. I’ll go pretty far — just not too dangerous, uncomfortable, man-made or “sensible” — the kind my mother wore when she was two-thirds my age.

Last winter I observed a glimmer of normalcy. Some styles had toe boxes with wiggle room. Heels had moderated until … oh my.

The misogynistic masochists are at it again. This summer, we must be Roman slave maidens with imitation leather straps creeping up our ankles, secured with enough metal to set off every airport siren. And that’s just the flats. They also come in platform heels resembling what the stilt-walker wears at the circus or what I’m told are sold at adult toy stores.

The gladiators knew: “We who are about to suffer greet you.”

I’ve omitted a category: uggers. Uggers are sandals, clogs and lace-ups pretending to be running shoes. They have undulating rubber soles and straps in funny places. They look like Nikes after 10 minutes with an angry bull mastiff. They are neither fish nor fowl and yes, some have high wedgie heels.

Look, it’s a free country — a creative one, at that. You can wear what you want. The problem seems to be that we’re wearing what somebody else wants. Manufacturers aren’t stupid. They know women carry the shoe gene, and women are their cash cows.

However, if these extremes continue I’ll be forced to open the phone book and let my fingers do the walking to “B.”

That’s for blacksmith, dahling, not Blahnik.

Contact Deborah Salomon (size 6 ½ B) at debsalomon@hotmail.com.