These are my boots. I love them. I've wanted rain boots for YEARS but could never justify buying them. On my first ever trip to TJ Maxx (dangerous!) they beckoned to me from the bottom shelf. Cheap and only in my size. When stores have shoes only in my size I'm always convinced that it's fate and I have permission to buy them. Even fate overrules practicality, folks. I'm an ISTJ and even I believe that.
Fate was at work several years ago in a random store in Alaska when I first encountered a pair of rain boots that beckoned to me from the bottom shelf. I wore them all around the store and stuck out my bottom lip when my mom reminded me that they wouldn't fit in the suitcase I was taking back to Iowa and they certainly weren't going to fit in the suitcase I would be taking from Iowa to Africa in a few short months.
Fast forward a few short months to me standing in a street in North Africa in the rain, the hem of my jeans soaked in gross street mud. Mud from nasty guys blowing their noses and butchers throwing out the leftovers and a million stray cats and donkeys with digestive problems. So many donkeys. My street was too narrow for an umbrella and the streets that were wide enough for umbrellas were minefields. My rain-fearing neighbors were oblivious to the fact that umbrellas are deadly weapons when put into the wrong hands. My life flashed before my eyes every time I left the house in the rain. Not my past life but my future life, in which I wore an eye patch. Rain meant mud and mud meant dirty jeans and dirty jeans meant laundry but rain meant the laundry took DAYS to dry. And I only had one pair of jeans. And no, I couldn't just roll them up because heaven forbid a girl show a little ankle on her way to Arabic class. Sister needed some boots.
And now they're mine at last. And I'll take them with me wherever I go.
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