I love boots. I love sales. Boot sales are like the best thing ever. Like it’s been said before, shoes are your friends. No matter how much your weight fluctuates, the shoes on your feet are loyal to you, not judging your muffin top or junk in the trunk.
In the past, cheap shoes were always the way I went. I could get shoes more often and they’d be super trendy and uncomfortable. Now that I”m in my 30’s I don’t care about being super trendy and want comfortable shoes I can run after a child in. I’m all into investments these days and the words “boot sale” give my heart a thrill I never knew could exist for a foot covering.
and what do you know but the one time I was at the mall this year they were having a blowout boot sale in my favorite store? I walked in a trance into the store. Touching, sighing and ignoring my children running around screeching and smearing up full length mirrors. I found the pair. A pair of black, flat soled rider boots with a thick zipper and buckles galore. and they had my size…
I took a deep breath as I slowly zipped up the boot, the scent of expensive leather filling my nostrils, the 75% off tag dangling like a crystal, shining everywhere in the sunlight… images of outfits worn, places walked together…
WHA…??
the zipper had stopped. I checked to see if it was stuck… no… what could be going on? My foot fit… Then it dawned on me…
It was me. and my MASSIVE FREAKING CALVES.
I was such in a cowboy boot phase I had forgot the reason I turned to them in the first place. Their generous calve allowance.
The helpful sales girl came over, “and how do they fit?” she asked apparently NOT looking at my half-zipped up boot as I frantically tried to stuff more of my calve into the boot to squeeze together the zipper...
I decided to come clean after 10 more minutes of embarrassing positions trying to force the zipper up and shrieked to her, “MY CALVES ARE TOO BIG”.
She was very uncomfortable. In fact, her deep embarrassment started to affect me and I was suddenly embarrassed too, wondering if I should have simply said, “No, they don’t seem to be fitting,” and left out the I’m having a nervous breakdown over these boots bit. To cover up the awkward seconds ticking by she ran over to the ugliest boots in the store and showed them to me.
“These boots are great for women with… larger calves,” she trailed off. I just stared at her.
“Oh, thanks so much, you are oh-so-helpful but those really aren’t the stye that I was looking for, thank you though!” is what I should have said. Instead I blurted out, “Yeeeeeeeeeeeah. Those are kind of ugly.”
More silence.
*Luckily* one of my children ran by shrieking and distracted everyone so I was able to get my old boots back on and scamper out of the store with what was left of my dignity and pride.
If only they made spanx for calves… and I’ll be sticking to the cowboy boots.
