boots

When I went away to college (a little more than 10 years ago - yikes) my mother insisted that I have a new pair of winter boots. Clunky, heavy, rated to a billion-below-zero, way more than a college student would ever buy herself, winter boots. For walking around campus in the winter and snow, she said.

Mothers like you to be warm.
College students do not like to be warm walking around campus in the winter and snow. They want to be cool. Even if they're slightly hungover, hauling more studio supplies than they can carry and its blizzarding out and they really couldn't be less cool - heaven forbid they wear clunky boots. Good God.

So these boots sit in my closet for 10+ years. I may have worn them twice.
.
We moved into our house this year and we're spending our first winter in it, getting used to the drafts, the drifts, the icy paths and the endless shoveling.
And do you know what I decide to wear? My boots. My practically brand-new, oh-so-warm, surprisingly comfortable, what was I thinking, I want-to-wear-them-everywhere boots.

But here's where we get ironic. Maybe, sometimes I'm not sure I'm really using that word right. But this feels ironic.
After about two wearings they started to crack. And with every run around town they crack more. And more. And they are literally falling apart and are no longer wearable. Apparently this is what happens when you put boots in a closet for ten years.

This is one of those times where I would like to call my mom so that she could say I told you so. Instead I am shopping online. Buying a pair of clunky, heavy, rated to a billion-below-zero, way more than a college student would ever buy herself, winter boots.
And somewhere my mother laughs.