Getting the Boot

As my good friend Danielle already touched upon on her blog, it is very difficult for a woman with fuller calves to find a pair of boots that fit. Lord knows there are some sexy ass boots out there at the moment, and frankly I do not think that I should be left out simply because I have womanly, yet muscular calves (it would have been too easy for the gene fairies to have given me my mother's legs that go on forever - instead I get my Father's insanely defined rugby worthy lower half). I became determined to find my perfect pair of this season's latest boots. I started by ducking into swanky shoe stores on weekends, quickly grabbing a pair of boots in my size off the shelf, slipping off my own worn shoe and yanking on a dark knee-high alternative only to feel my face burn bright with embarrassment at the sound of the zipper getting stuck on my protruding calf muscle.

After various self-esteem killing tries over the past few weeks I finally came to the conclusion that my boots are unfortunately not residing in swanky shoe stores. Their half-way house is actually discount department stores, ones that sell Christmas decorations all year round, have an insanely large selection of bed slippers and are never without a plus size section. And so it came that I found myself on a Wednesday night after work basking in the sweltering heat and fluorescent lighting of a T.K. Maxx (for whatever reason, the J has been replaced by a K in the English version - now who's got their annoying theme song stuck in their heads).

I was a woman on a mission.

25 minutes into my shopping experience finds me with sweat trickling down my face into my collar and hobbling around the wide aisles with one shoe on and one shoe off (this was of course my “trying on” foot). Out of the perhaps 20 or so pairs of boots that I tried on, 2 fit. That is one, two. Out of what might have been a billion for all the effort I made. One pair that fit was a frumpy black snow boot. The other was a slouchy brown boot that fit like a glove.




Worth every cent of my Mother’s hard earned money and every bead of sweat shed.