When I started out at this whole 'Change my life' thing, I set myself some goals. I wanted to (in no particular order):
-Comfortably fit into a North Face jacket
-Not fret about seat belts fitting when faced with air travel
-Have more energy
-Be able to shop at RW & Co
-Buy a fun pair of high black boots
Well. I can't find the North Face jacket that I fit into nicely. I have flown multiple times without worrying for a second about the seatbelt not buckling. I have oodles of energy. I have clothes that not only fit from RW & Co. but are now too big and gone to Goodwill.
I do not have high black boots. I can't fit in high black boots. I have been all over this city and the interwebs because other robustly calved woman have sworn to me that they found theirs at store x,y,z. I drive to stores x,y,z and ask for wide calf boots and I am met with looks of disdain from the workers. As though I am the only person in this entire world who had the audacity to ask for an additional inch around the fattest part of the lower part of their leg. I feel a little like Oliver Twist - every single time.
The interwebs were no more help. Clearly having been shamed at the shoe store, my kindred calved people flocked to cyber space to solve their wide conundrum. Every boot I have looked at and would wear in public shows Sold Out in red letters. Red, mocking letters. Could they not make more? Surely if they sold out before the cold weather kicked in, there was a good chance they could and would sell more. If supply and demand are a thing, then surely the could have charged the same as a Prius and folk like me would have paid it to cover up our skinny jeans without shame.
So today, I was at my sisters house and having never been able to wear the same clothes in our lifetime, I was excited to be trying on her dresses and to be picking which ones looked best for me to take on vacation. This was a big deal. Then I got ambitious when she brought me a pair of high boots. High dark grey suede boots. They looked promising. I was wearing a size Medium sundress. Certainly things couldn't be that bad.
That's when things got exciting.
I put the boot on my foot. My wide foot fit in the boot. Good news.
Then I tried to pull the boot up with the bottom zipper undone. If you are the lucky owner of these items I covet you know what I mean. It was tight. It didn't want to go up. So we both used our best determination to convince me that if I pulled it up, it would clear the widest part of my calf and then I could do up the ankle zipper. So I tugged and pulled and tugged some more. That didn't work. So I gave on massive yank and it was about 98% of the way up. Victory. I reached down to zip up the ankle part. While I was fighting with that, I started feeling a funny sensation in my foot. Like your foot falling asleep when you sit on the toilet reading too long (you know you do it - don't judge me).
Then my leg started to ache. Clearly the boot didn't fit. I needed to take it off and just keep on, keeping on at the gym. This wasn't a wide calve boot. It wasn't that big a deal. I just needed to take it off.
That's when things got fun.
I reached down to pull the boot off and it didn't budge. I pulled from the bottom. No movement. I tried pushing from the top. Nothing. I tried it all again. Nothing. Sat on the bed and tried. Stood up and tried. No movement at all, in any direction. It couldn't go up, and it would NOT got down.
So then, I did what all normal people do when faced with a situation of adversity. I started to laugh. Hard. I couldn't get the boot off and I couldn't feel my foot, my leg was swelling, and I couldn't maintain my composure.
"Sister, this boot has fused to the skin on my leg. Could you please pull?"
She is not any more composed than me at this point. But she gives it the college try. She tries pulling from the foot part. She tries pushing from the top part. She tries pulling on the zipper.
NOTHING.
Bridget is flitting and flying around the house making fun. Maggie's 7 week old baby Audrey is laying on the bed observing all of this with solemn eyes. She isn't judging yet.
So, the next logical thing to do was to give Maggie more leverage. So I lay on the floor of her spare room in the sun dress I was thrilled to have on and let her throw her back into it. She pushed and pulled and grunted with all of her might. It was not coming off.
Then it happens. I look at her her standing over me heaving and hauling with all of her might and I say "Oh sister, Audrey came out easier than this."
No one had any strength left to be pushing and pulling and heaving away and I couldn't feel my foot at all now. But we were laughing so hard we had no muscle coordination. It was a hard state. Then she suggests that perhaps we should wait for her husband to come home to help. Given my state of dress (and inability to put on pants) that didn't seem like the best idea. In my head, I envisioned emailing her money to reimburse her for the boot I was about to have to cut off my leg with garden shears (if I could manage to get them to fit inside to cut with!)
Fearing at this point that my leg was in danger due to the searing pain where the top of the boot was cutting off the circulation and the fact that I couldn't feel my foot, I started to panic a little. "Baby oil," I shouted, "Get the baby oil."
Maggie tears out of the room and comes back with a jar of Vaseline. She jams her fingers into the top of the boot and tries to lubricate me enough to slide it off. This did nothing to help my laughing. Panic and laughing and no pants and a numb foot is really the best way to spend your Friday afternoon (said no one ever).
It took another ten minutes and half a container of Vaseline and a full aerobic work out on both our parts- but the boot came off. It feels like my calf was beaten with a baseball bat. We probably should have cut it off in the first 30 minutes of the whole ordeal. I probably shouldn't have forced it on when it was giving me loads of resistance. I probably shouldn't have tried them on when I was sceptical to start with. But it's off, and it's over and anyone who understands my plight will think it's funny. If the girl at the shoe store reads this she will probably scorn me like she does when I am shopping.
But, on the bright side of all of it - I didn't try to make it work in the middle of the shoe store and have to suffer the embarrassment of a petroleum jelly rescue. But, I guess if that had happened, I might have at least been wearing a pair of pants!
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