Boots Are the Worst

It’s December, and since I live in a city in the Northern Hemisphere that has a climate, that means the conditions outside are increasingly snowman friendly. Thus, in order to protect my delicate lady legs from the bitter cold, I went in search of a pair of warm, pretty, standard winter boots.

That was back in early November. Now, a month later, I lay in a shriveled heap of failed hopes and abandoned dreams, waving my white flag in the fetal position. Because apparently there is a one-size fits all policy when it comes to boots, and I’m over it by a whole inch.

F*ck you, boot makers of everywhere. Isn’t it enough that my tiny feet mean I fall over a lot, now they also mean I couldn’t possibly zip up anything on my calves that isn’t 3 sizes too big? Who decided 16″ was the average calf circumference? If I can fit into a size 6 dress, then I can fit into a pair of boots. And even if I was four sizes bigger, whether because I was a foot taller (dreams!) or because I was just bigger, I shouldn’t be denied boots.

You know who had calves like mine? My grandmother. My grandmother had “big” calves. She also could never find boots to fit her. So as far as I’m concerned, bootmakers, you hate my grandmother. What’s up with that?

My choices now are shopping online, after spending over a month going from store to store, failing zip after zip. Because of one measley inch and the inflexibility of bootmakers everywhere, I am left out in the cold, peering in through the windows of stores at all the happy girls who were born with skinny-calf-genes and don’t jog. There they sit, warmed by the glow of their footwear choices, trying on everything their little hearts desire, while I let the last match burn down to my fingers and quietly die in my summer flats.

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