HAIRSHIRT
Helping You Get the Most Out of Your Misery
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HAIRSHIRT Helping You Get the Most Out of Your Misery |
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Friday, February 03, 2006Boot Hill
So yesterday, I'm standing on the platform after school, listening to some music and waiting for the 4 train to whisk me home (okay, not straight home, 'cause I was going to the comic book store first because I'm an immense fucking geek and I just had to know what was going to happen to Green Lantern and Green Arrow, who'd been attacked by an alien and left with huge hallucinogenic, life-sucking flowers attached to their chests) when a guy walked up to me.
Now, I'm not a fan of having people walk up to me at all, because of encounters like the one I had during last night's 10PM dog walk with the fella I unsuccessfully attempted to avoid after noticing that he was drinking from a brown paper bag and carrying four identical belts with huge ugly buckles. I'd have been wise to try a little harder to avoid him, as he proceeded to engage me in a heavily slurred five minute conversation about the rapture. It was nice, at least, that I'd made a sufficient impression on him that he felt the need to tell me he loved me. Happily, the guy on the train platform had no desire to talk to me about anything vaguely theological or alcoholic. (Although his diction was not exactly perfect and, as my earphones were doing nothing to improve my ability to understand him, I had to temporarily turn off a very nice Stevie Wonder tune to catch what the fuck he was saying.) What he wanted to discuss with me was my boots. My boots, you may or may not recall, were giving me no end of fits for awhile; were, in fact, engaged in a life or death struggle with my feet. So this guy says (repeatedly and mumbly), "Are those comfortable?" He had been thinking, you see, of purchasing a pair of North Face boots for himself, as they had been recommended to him. Finally, I thought, finally a chance to share my story. Finally, an opportunity for someone else to gain from my insight. I fixed him with a serious look. "They're great," I said. "However...they take a few weeks to break in. During which time, they tear your fucking feet to shreds." My new acquaintance seemed a little at a loss as to how to respond to this news. So I did my best to reassure him. "Now, though, they're really comfortable." I was tempted to follow this up by stomping my boots into the cement and yelling at them, "Aren't you, you fucks?! You're fucking comfortable now, huh? 'Cause you are no match for me! You bled me and you hurt me and you did your level best to cripple me and now I wear you like you were flip-flops, bitch!" I didn't however, actually launch into this stream of shoe-hating invective, as the train pulled up at that exact moment and I had to jump on and grab a seat. I'd been on my feet all day and they were killing me.
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