Boot Futures, Ltd.

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:               BOOT Futures, LTD.

   

    Sometimes, from the high plateau of Geezerhood, in rare times of quiet when reflection stimulates or even permeates the thought process, certain memories flow like torrents into the cerebral cortex of still working brain.  Memories such as...   "Boots."

    In the winter of an indeterminate time of life (specific memories aren't always all that crisp and clear!), I set my sights on a gift of Xmas for SweetHeart, a wearable product I felt certain she would love to receive, and to wear proudly and delightedly, subsequent to receipt of same on the day above referenced.  

    Off I motored to an (ugh) enormous shopping mall in a suburban location.  That particular shopping complex was quite popular among rabid consumers.  Though the center was considered highly attractive to the masses, it was not in its bloom of youth having been planted several years prior to the episode to which I refer.  It sported an enormous parking arena that circumnavigated the complex.  One could almost always find a space defined or demarcated by slanted yellow lines.  Never close, however, to the shop or store in which one hoped to focus her or his attention.

    I started my quest at a large department store that was named after an eastern seaboard metropolis.  It no longer exists, the store, that is.  Nevertheless, I'm certain that's where I began the search.  I went immediately to the footwear department.  I queried a sales person.  "I'd like to consider purhasing a pair of boots, of the stylish variety in vogue by today's modern woman.  You know, tall, sueded boots, in a brown-ish tone of color...  more brown than beige, I think..."

    "I see," the young man began, "and what size does monsieur wish to purchase?"  

    "Um," I stupidly responded, "and what size would you recommend for a woman of approximately five-feet-seven inches in height?"  

    He chuckled nervously.  "I haven't the foggiest notion," he replied.

    "Well, let me see now.  Why don't we say women's size 8-1/2, possibly 9.  Do you think that might be suitable?"  

    "Um, let me repeat, sir, I haven't any idea.  I don't know the person for whom you intend the boots to fit."

   

He delivered several sizes of sueded boots to the chair in which I had seated myself.  All of the proffered boots sported the same altitude and coloring.  I selected a pair.  He announced the price, turning the carton to my view to reveal the printed cost.  

    "How much?!" I nearly shouted at the young man.  He was taken aback.  A shocked look appeared like a frozen mask upon his young visage.  I tend to be somewhat frugal.  Some might prefer, "Cheap" or "Tight Fisted" or perhaps "Miserly."  After my own face lost its purple hue, I calmed, selected a specific pair of boots, insulted the young man, his management, commercial enterprises generally, offered grudgingly an instrument of payment and departed for my waiting vehicle.

   

Imagine two pairs of spanking new boots
having been placed foolishly atop a car, only
to "lose their footing" and slide off as the
car motored homeward, one pair never
to be seen again!  An expensive "hobby,"

    I fumbled for my keys, as if conducting a search for lost doubloons in a Caribbean shore-line cave; it seemed to consume an amount of time equal to such a search, amid cursing and patting my person in near panic and grumbling....  Winter weather tends to force ordinary mortals to wear heavy apparel.  Outside pockets, inside pockets, not to mention inner garments with many pockets.  In the search for said keys, I absentmindedly placed the boot purchase in its heavy carton atop the vehicle.  Having finally found the keys, I motored off toward my home.

    Upon my arrival, I looked throughout the vehicle, quite naturally expecting the package to appear, but with futility and growing rage.  "Oh shit," said I, "I left them on top of the damn car.  I'm a complete idiot!!"  More cursing produced no desired result.  I retraced my route, looking left and right, motoring slowing with angry motorists honking and beeping and uttering foul insults.  Arriving back at the shopping complex and its commodious parking area, I searched and found no package containing boots.

  

    Foolishly, as if shoppers during the Season of Good Cheer were completely infused with integrity, I found nothing.  I tripped into the department store shoe department and queried the young sales person who seemed displeased to see me.  "No monsieur, no one turned in a carton of boots."

    "Where is your lost and found department?"  He directed me to customer service, staffed by a surly young woman who reported that nothing of the description I provided was turned in.  I also quizzed the store's principal customer service desk.  Nothing.  I returned to the footwear department where the vapid young man was now serving another patron.  I waited impatiently, tapping my feet.  Finally he turned toward me, an annoyed and questioning look upon his insipid mug...  I asked for another pair of the same footwear.

    He disappeared into an apparently secret inner sanctum where probably thousands of pairs of shoes and boots sat on absurdly high shelves, approachable only by rolling ladders (I imagined).  He reappeared carrying nothing.  "I'm very sorry, he said, with no expression of sincerity upon his smug face.  "We sold the last pair," he added, a nasty smirk creeping along his lips as his jaw line began to crinkle.

    I left that accursed store and trekked in an easterly direction, then entered a shoe and boot emporium that specialized.  I asked the same question of a young woman, she being unoccupied in a somewhat busy shop.  She appeared with several boxes.  "These should do nicely," she offered, "seems to be exactly what you want, and they're all the rage in this market."  

    Once again my frugality reappeared as a wild beast in a shrubbery profused jungle!  I tamped down my ire and agreed to pay the exorbitant price for the boots.  The nice young woman packaged them, I paid the freight and went somewhat satisfied (maybe, partially dissatisfied?...) along my way.

    Upon reaching the automobile, having at first been lost, having circled the parking area a few times punctuated by angry cursing, I searched for keys in the manner described earlier, having already placed the boot package upon the car top.  Impatiently, I scrambled in and motored off homeward.

    "Oh my god, you complete and utter buffoon," I announced to myself.  Once again, I had driven off with boots on the roof of the car.  I repeated the same search on my way back to the shopping mall, feeling like a demented tennis spectator, craning my neck left then right (a crane...  a goose?), slowly following the progress of the roadway as it disappeared beneath the underside of the vehicle.  Beep...  Hook...  "Move it along you stupid sloth..." and other more vehement insults.  (I could spy the "F" word being pantomimed by trailing motorists in the rear view!!)   

    Back at the rotten, stinking mall, I returned to the shoe and boot shop where I had purchased Pair Two, and re-purhased the same boots.  On this occasion, the shop had another pair.

    Then, on an impulse, and thinking to my tired brain, "Well... why not, one never

knows."  I repaired once again to the primary customer service area.  A miracle!  Someone had found the package in the parking lot and turned it in to the lost and found department.  "This is extraordinary," I tried to explain excitedly to the woman who staffed the counter, telling her the remarkable tale of the "Boot Futures."

  "Aren't people wonderful," I exclaimed.

    With a bored and completely disinterested look upon her face, she merely announced in an exhausted monotone, "Next, please."  With that, I left carrying two pairs of boots, nicely boxed and packaged in brown paper sacks.

    Stupidly, I couldn't help myself.  On Xmas eve, I presented both pairs to my sweet and wonderful spouse, SweetHeart.  "Two pairs of boots," she said as she unwrapped the parcels.  "I mean, very sweet of you, but two pairs, and they're almost identical."

    "Wouldn't you like a spare pair," I suggested inanely!   

   

    "We'll just return one of them, and get our money back.  Then you can buy me something else," she offered, eyes bright with promise and excitement.  I had quite possibly created the original "Pug Dog" paradigm.  What an idiot, I thought to myself about myself.  Alas, I suppose I brought this on my own head.  However, everyone in our family thoroughly enjoyed the tale, as each in turn laughed heartily and looked at me as if to state, "You poor, dumb, hapless numbskull!"

    "Well," said I, "Boot futures...  An investment, sort of..."  (That Pug Dog thing, however, continues to repose in a troubled brain...   a sort of haunting ghoul...  as if we jointly created an economic demon, determined, from time to time, to wound the psyche as it stuns the pocketbook!!)  

(Special Note of Dedication:    This posting is intended to amuse and possibly even entertain SweetHeart, Alie and Bethie, who always seem to enjoy "Pug Dog" tales, even though they tend to wound the heart of the writer's fragile, economically-delicate psyche.  Sigh!  But, one supposes that laughter is a healing balm, something that supersedes other emotions!  Thank You!)   

Humbly Submitted for Viewing Pleasure, 02-13-2024 -- Joel K.