Ah, it’s wintertime again. And while I don’t get to enjoy the full effect of winter here in Florida, a recent trip to Seattle gave me a chance to truly enjoy one of the great pleasures there – boot season.
I know, you thought I was going to talk about the the coming of the holidays. You should know me better than that. While I do indeed enjoy a crisp winter morning, with the leaves rustling on the city streets, I am prone to instantly being distracted when a woman walks by wearing a fetching pair of boots.
I mention this only because last night, while dining out, I caused what most people would consider relationship suicide. There I was, talking to my significant other, when my head spun around suddenly. A woman had walked in and in a total knee jerk reaction, I turned.
Jan didn’t even bother looking. She just smiled and said, “Let me guess, someone in boots.”
She was right of course. I’m like Pavlov’s dogs, though I’ve learned to disguise any inadvertent drooling.
It’s all my cousin Sue’s fault. She started this whole thing when I was eight years old. My father had brought home a large empty box from a new television. As usual, it became a creative playground for me. This one became a space capsule. I cut out a door with a knife that looking back was way too sharp for a kid my age, and then converted the interior using bottle caps for knobs and a Sharpie to make levers and switches on the control panel.
Just as I was finishing, Sue crawled in. I’m not sure, but I think the excessive fumes from the Sharpie brought on my first episode of hallucibootinations. Sue was wearing your typical white go-go boots at the time and it was the first time I had ever noticed that there were boots in this world.
Ever since, it’s been a boot thing. I never spin my head because a girl has a nice set of bodacious humbungies (that’s what my Uncle Mark called breasts), or a nice rear end. Nope, it’s always the same thing – boots.
Some of my ex-whatevers caught onto this fact and would end up with one or more pair of boots. Rarely did I ask them to. If they liked them, great. If not, they had to learn to deal with the head turns.
Sometimes I think an ex-whatever thought a good pair of boots would keep me interested in the relationship. I know Kathy O’Connell thought so. Two days after we started “going out” in high school, she showed up at school in a pair of white lace up boots. I guess she thought that would cement the relationship, along with her humbungies. It didn’t. We broke up two weeks later. The boots were great, but Kathy didn’t exactly do anything for me.
Years later, boot love still exists. It’s no big secret either. Every woman I’ve had a relationship with knows of this fondness. Some have catered to it, taking a liking to boots themselves. Others have eschewed the very idea, and that was fine with me, too. To each his own.
I think some of the women I have dated have taken comfort in the fact that I am never really looking at another woman, well, at least in the truest sense of the word. I could rarely tell my significant other anything about the woman, even her hair color, but I could describe the boots in often minute detail.
So, what is it about boots, you ask? I have no bloody idea. I only know that it’s always been a thing, well, at least since I was eight years old.
And it’s not all boots. There is a Rubik’s Cube of rules attached to them – or as Jan calls them “just rules” – just rules that I like.
Here are the basics. First, ankle boots – not even on the radar – and I feel a big cheated when they are worn with jeans because I think they’re real boots until the woman sits down. Damn these teases!
In general, the taller the better, but not so tall that they extend into the hooker range. I’m not complaining about a thigh high pair of boots, but unless you’re at Biketoberfest, it’s best that these babies remain home and be used for recreational purposes.
Case in point. Chap boots. Lovely to behold, but can you imagine wearing these things in public? (If you can, call me!)
Let’s go with the other rules. Well, they are more like guidelines. Leather trumps suede, suede trumps faux leather. Everything trumps patent leather. Black, brown or white. Never animal prints or God forbid, lame. Heels beat flats. No zippers beat zippers. Adornments trump plain. Geez, this is sounding more and more like a high stakes card game. I can hear the Russian judge giving extra points for spurs but that does nothing for me. Too cowboy. And oh, cowboy boots do nothing for me either. There’s no cowboy in me (wait, that sounded dirty!).
Of course, in Florida, boot season is unseasonably short. Luckily, I happen to be a pirate and wenches love to wear boots. And no, I’m not a pirate just because of this fact. It’s just a perk. And because playing pirate can really take its toll on cheap clothing, everyone tends to spend a lot of money on their boots.
How do I know this? Hey, what’s a pirate without a pair of bucket boots? While the re-enfakement folks would poo-poo them, they look piratey. There’s nt point in dressing in the clothes of a common sailor – nobody understands that you’re trying to portray a pirate. Get over it and put on a pair of pirate boots. I learned this long ago. I have a couple pairs in inventory.
Go ahead and judge me if you wish. But I will put this love of boots up against any guy who prefers a woman in a pair of sandals or espadrilles. Well, on second thought, espadrilles aren’t so bad either.
Out on the Treasure Coast, shopping for a new pair of pirates boots (for me, for me),
– Robb