Girl-y Boots

Marvelous excitement . . . Youngest Son was invited to go snow tubing. The invitation was extended on a Saturday afternoon. He had to be ready to go bright and early after church in the morning.

That's very limited time for a child of the South to somehow come up with the necessary gloves, boots, hat, etc. And if you read my last post, you will remember that after Christmas none of those Northern delights can be found in the "sunny" South.

True to prediction, Saturday night at 9:00 p.m. found us stumped over boots for the child. His mesh-y sports shoes would not do. Boots it must be.

And there were none in town. None.

Until we got to the last sports store. And there we found one pair. Just one. They were snow boots. They were his size. They were in the clearance section. They were white. They were women's.

They said so right on the tag, "Womens - Size 8." My throat constricted. The death knell.

"These are the ones I want!" he enthused. He tried them on. They fit. The last pair in town.

His size. My price. Women's.

Had he noticed? I grabbed them up, scooping the telltale label under my arm. And in the car, in the secrecy of the darkness, I pulled every one of those tags off. Quickly.

No one was going to rob my boy of his time in the snow. Not even his aversion to all things "girl-y."

He tumbled in the front door, bubbly with excitement . . . snow, boots, tubing, friends . . .

And then.

And then a male in my household, a male in my household very much old enough to know better, said the unthinkable . . . the unimaginable.

"Aren't . . . those . . . girls' . . . boots?"

It was over for the youngest boy in a household filled with men. Girls boots? No way. And no reasoning, logic, explanation, or persuasion was going to convince him otherwise.

Did I mention that no one was going to rob my boy of his time in the snow? I believe I did. I meant it.

An 8 a.m. trip to Wal-Mart in the morning brought home a can of black satin spray paint. And by 9 a.m., we had a new pair of boots.

Cool boots. Boys' boots.

Have a fabulous time, Youngest Son!!