Do you every wonder, when you see a single boot in the road, how it came to be lolling solitarily on the gravel? Probably not. Which means you live in civilization. I, on the other hand, inhabit Hillmomba.
It was black rubber boot, the kind sold by The Devil, popular with cow-milkers and concrete-shovelers and kids dying to make the most of a snow day. Bootsie was not there when The Pony and I left for school this morning. A pounding rain had arrived around 4:30 a.m., complete with lightning and thunder and moderate winds. By 6:50, the air held the humid promise of a sweltering afternoon. But there was nary a raindrop to be found.
Parts of our gravel road had been sluiced into channels. The Grand Chasm on the first hill had deepened. But the run-off had dissipated quickly. Not even the creek was advertising the downpour.
Bootsie lay abandoned in the afternoon. My scenario says a good ol' boy in a pickup taking a shortcut happened upon the newly exposed boulder just before the Grand Chasm. A bone-jarring, tooth-rattling landing after his four-wheel-drive hillbilly cruiser went airborne might have jarred Bootsie loose. I picture Bootsie minding his own business, stuffed upside down next to his mate in the crack between the cab and the bed of the truck. Next thing he knew, he was taking a chat nap all by his lonesome. Next case. I'm not connected to Mystery Inc. with a red phone for nothin', you know.
I really hope that Scavenger H does not pick up Bootsie and bring him home. Just in case we ever need a single boot in a size nobody here wears.
You could always use him for a planter if Scavenger H does bring him home. ;-)
ReplyDeleteYou have really thought about this haven't you?
The most interesting one I saw was a pair of tennis shoes with strings tied together hanging over an electric wire. I thought "how long can those shoe strings really last in the sun and wind of the great oz?" Apparently 3 years until the big ice storm which took down the pole along with that wire...I was impressed with how well those shoe strings held up!
If he does, I know a good place you can put it!
ReplyDeletelabbie,
ReplyDeleteI take it personally when I spy flotsam and jetsam on our private gravel road. I figure a fellow dweller would have noticed that boot was missing, and come back for it. We had a downpour, you know. So Bootsie should have been in high demand on the ol' homestead.
They sure don't make shoestrings like they used to. When I was in high school, I had the bright idea to soak my volleyball-shoe strings in some bleach overnight. Um...all that was left the next morning were the aglets. That's the name for those plastic thingies on the ends.
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knancy,
I have a feeling that the special place for a found lone boot would be very dark indeed.