It took all day to leave Boston. And that was with help. That was with Lana driving me around and around. I had to buy shoes, see. Couldn’t leave town with out them. Same shoes as she had. Had to have them the minute I saw them. They were the first things I noticed the minute I walked in the door. Clogs. Never thought I’d wind up wanting a pair of clogs bad enough to spend two days shopping for them, two days not including the advanced research we did online.
Pretty much the minute MiT5 was over, Lana picked me up in her gold pick up truck and we set out in search of clogs. The first store had lots of selection. I fell in love with a fuchsia pair, but didn’t try them because Lana insisted we had to go to this other store first, to be fitted: They’re the clog experts over there. Back to the gold pick up. Selection in the second store was limited. No fuchsia, for example. But now we knew what size I was. 39 narrow. All they had in that was Cordoba, which is clog lingo for dark brown. I couldn’t commit. That’s fine, Lana said. Let’s go back to the first place.
Along the way back it started to rain and I started rethinking the Cordoba. By the time we got there, and discovered there was no fuchsia in 39 narrow, plain old black seemed abhorrent to me. Cordoba or bust. But it was too late. Parking is easier on Sunday. But stores close early.
We’ll go tomorrow, on the way to the bus, Lana said. Sorry about all this, I said. You buy shoes exactly the way I buy shoes, Lana said. So I can’t be mad. If you had fallen in love with the first pair you tried on I probably would have talked you out of them.
We set out again the next day. Back to the clog experts, back to the Cordoba. A different person was working. We said: We’d like to see the Cordoba in 39 narrow. He said: You’re in luck, we have a pair. We didn’t say: We know. I tried them on again, just for kicks, and right away I said: I’ll take them! He said: Wow! You’re quick! We laughed. He had no idea.
On the way to South Station Lana put in a call to First Place: Do you have the Marguerite in a 39 in red? You do? Oh great! Can you put them on hold for me?
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