Where I live, in southern Mississippi, it is pretty hot and humid. During the summer, we have a weather pattern of very rainy days. We get into a spell of daily "pop up" showers, usually between 4 and 5pm, short lived, that dump a decent amount of water, and then cease. The after effects, since the sun comes right back out with mighty vengeance, is a hot, humid, steamy afternoon with wet roads and grass. This year, for some reason, the rainy streak was late. Very, very late. We damn near had a drought condition upon us, and then, the proverbial bottom fell out. Last count had fourteen, count em-fourteen consecutive days of rain, showers, and soul-blasting, turd-floating, frog-strangling, ark-sinking volleys of dihydrogen monoxide. That's hard rain for a bloody fortnight folks. We have had more flash floods in the last two weeks than we get in an average year around here. I touch on this in another article about rain gear, so I'll get around to the point.
I have been wearing my New Balance sneakers this summer, as my waterproof 5 year old work boots don't breathe well, and I wanted to keep my feet from getting all sweaty and uncomfortable. Except that they keep getting wet from all the rain, since the shoes are almost like tissue paper as far as water repelency goes. So, I decided to just break out the old work boots so that my feet would stay mostly dry.
Around 9:30 this particular morning the rain decides to come down, and my new rain jacket is keeping me nice and happy (read:dry) during the downpour. I'm fetching things from the work truck, in no particular hurry since I'm now impervious to waters' wetting effects. After slogging back towards the building I was working in, through the pond that used to be the parking lot, I paused under an overhang out of the rain for a moment. Before I hit the threshold of the door, I noticed my feet were very cold. Then I heard the unmistakable squishing soggy sound of soaked socks. My boots, feet, socks, and very soul were waterlogged.
Having not had rain for a while, and having not worn the boots since the heat showed up this year, I got to find out the hard way that "waterproof" was no longer listed on their resume. The combination of years of hard wear on the leather, cracks along where the sole meets the boot, and various cuts, gashes, scrapes, and punctures were enough to make the boots pretty porous. Hooray for our side. I also had to replace the insoles or inserts or whatever the hell they are called inside the boots last season, as mine were worn through, with a pair of Dr. Scholl's gel thingies, which don't really fit right. But I can deal.
It took forever to get things back to a tolerable state, given my conditions and workload. I couldn't exactly go barefoot in a doctors office with a remodel going on, while my boots and socks slowly dried over the campfire in the corner of the new X-ray room. It just figured that the day I finally decided to get the boots back out, to protect me from the water, would be the day they failed me. I haven't been able to laugh about the situation yet, I'm still too pissed about having to shell out cabbage for a new pair of uber-sealed work boots, and from having to break in the new boots. I hate breaking boots in.
At any rate, the old boots are still fit for yard work, random chores, and riding the bike with, so I'll give them a chance to redeem themselves. I guess the takeaway here for me is to check my boots if I put them away for a time. Hmmmm.
-Owen
No comments:
Post a Comment