Those of us who are
old enough will remember that many years ago, Nancy Sinatra (Frank's
daughter—and please don't tell me you don't remember Frank)
sang about her boots that were made for walking. I owned just
such a pair of footwear, but only too briefly. My boots did not
"walk all over" a faithless lover as did Nancy's. Mine simply
walked out of my life. Yes, my $65 boots disappeared the very
first day I wore them, purloined as I visited a magnificent home
in tony Winchester, Massachusetts.
Did the butler do it?
Or the upstairs maid? Or maybe one of the host's children, bored
with his abundance of high tech toys and looking for a new thrill?
No, none of the above. The solution is much more mundane.
My boots were taken
by another guest in the home—by mistake, I'm sure. I was
on a holiday house tour, you see; and because of the slushy snow
outside, all visitors were asked to remove their shoes before
entering each home. Understandable, but uncomfortable.
At house No. 3 on my
tour, I dutifully followed orders and added my boots to the large
collection on the front portal and padded inside in my socks,
which by now were sodden from traversing wet porches—so much
for protecting the floors and rugs of the homes. When I emerged,
after dutifully "ohing" and "ahing" over the lovely interior décor,
I did my one-foot balancing act as I tried to don my boots. It
wasn't working. I tugged, I pulled, I even swore. Nothing helped.
I finally found a chair on the porch, again being forced to walk
in my stocking feet through puddles left by all the dripping footwear.
I sat, pulled, and tugged some more. Same results; i.e., no results.
The boots simply would not cooperate.
I finally realized
why. They weren't my boots. Though they looked like twins to mine,
these were size 7 Bandolinos. Mine were size 9 Naturalizers. Obviously,
the Bandolino owner had left the house before I did and had mistaken
my boots for hers. Of course, they glided very easily onto her
size 7 feet. Too easily. Didn't she realize that? Apparently not.
Meanwhile, there I
sat—shoeless in my wet socks, and a couple of blocks of slush
and snow separating me from my friend's car. I sloshed back into
the house and spoke to the volunteer in charge to ask if she could
phone the other houses on the tour to see if my wayward boots
had walked in on someone else's feet. "No," she snapped, "I have
no phone numbers." Could she phone the coordinators of the tour,
my friend asked, and get some help. "No," she repeated robotically,
"I have no phone number." "How am I supposed to get to my car
without shoes?" I wailed. That wasn't her problem, she retorted
ungraciously, and not her responsibility. Maybe not, but would
a sympathetic "Tsk! Tsk!" have been too difficult?
Fortunately, my friends
came up with a solution. Two would go the car, one would remove
her boots, and the other would carry them back to me so I could
get to the car and back home to pick up some substitute shoes.
Problem solved—except I still don't have my brand new boots.
There's a lesson here:
If you're ever asked to remove any article of clothing, be aware
of the danger of complying.
Rose Mula was an executive
assistant, a public relations specialist, and an operations manager
for a New England theater chain before discovering a passion for
writing.
Her work has appeared
in The Saturday Evening Post, Yankee, Modern Maturity, The
Christian Science Monitor, The Reader's Digest, The Philadelphia
Inquirer, The Baltimore Sun, and more than a hundred other
magazines and newspapers. Actually-thousands of newspapers, since
one of her essays, The
Stranger in My Mirror (originally titled, The Stranger
in My House), was reprinted in Ann Landers' nationally syndicated
column in 1999, and after an explanatory exchange with Ms. Landers, an attribution.
Rose's new book, If These Are Laugh Lines I'm Having Way Too Much Fun, is available at bookstores, through online bookstores, and from Pelican Publishing, 800-843-1724. The book was a finalist in USABOOKNEWS.COM's 2006 Best Books Award humor category. Meanwhile, she can reached
by e-mail.
