These Boots Were Made for Buying

A four year odyssey has finally ended. It was like searching for the freakin' Holy Grail. I finally, after dozens of failed attempts, found a pair of fashion boots. (Not muck-a-lucks. I do have my standards.) It shouldn't be that difficult. I go into stores that have dozens and dozens of boots. Boots that come up over the knee. Ankle boots that look like they've been amputated. Flat heeled. Spike heeled. Boots with more hardware than my toolbox.

Over the past few years I've seen first-hand how prevalent fashionable boots are, not only here in the States, but in Europe. I began to feel like I was the only woman in Western civilization who was not privy to boots, like my God-given right was being withheld. But I possess a special problem that makes finding boots difficult, if not almost impossible: I have large narrow feet and scrawny calves. Think of a clown with freakishly small calf muscles.

My quest for the perfect boot began more than three years ago in Portugal. Let me tell you, if you want to do some serious shoe/boot shopping, may I suggest Lisbon. There was a plethora of stores that catered to price sensitive, shoe-crazy women. That was the good news. The bad news was that Portuguese women are small in stature...and feet. My big size 9 American feet translated into a size 40 European shoe. Big-footed American women are not who Portuguese shoe companies have in mind. My girlfriend, Susie, had no problem finding great buys and styles for her 7.5 size foot. When I asked store clerks for a size 40 they would look at me sympathetically and shake their head, the universal symbol for 'Sorry, you clown-footed Yankee.'

My overseas search for a fashionable, well-fitting boot continued the next year in Paris where I went to more boot stores than patisseries. The look was skinny jeans in knee high boots with a low heel. It was easier to find mammoth size 40s but the boots swam around my ill-developed calves. I considered calf implants briefly. Okay, for an hour or so. After trying on a couple dozen pair of boots I gave up and turned my attention to croissants and aperitifs.

In Prague the following year I didn't have the heart to waste my precious international time schlepping in and out of shoe stores. Though my lineage is Eastern European, I think the average Czech woman probably has better proportioned calves. So I focused on the liquid chocolate the Czechs call hot chocolate and put my boot quest on hiatus.

This fall I was determined to find something, anything. Maybe I could hire a boot seamstress who could custom fit me. I had a snappy dress that I wanted to wear with tights and boots. So I set off for the local mall and a take no prisoner attitude. Shockingly I found a pair of boots that fit the bill. The irony was not lost on me that I've travelled thousands of miles in search of the perfect boot, and that boot was five miles from my home. You're a funny dude, God.

The trick, I realized, was to have the boots tie in the back. Aha! Custom fit the top of the boot around the calf. Large- and small-calved women are happy. I'd like to send a letter and fruit basket to the designer. I want to live in those boots until the open-toe, strappy shoe season returns in the spring. Instead I hug them every morning like a long-lost puppy. In four or five years I'll go in search of another pair.