Why I Took My Boots Back

Wow, I just looked at the date of my last post. I haven't written in this blog for almost a year - since my ex started reading it and found it necessary to share some particularly nasty comments he had to say assuming that what he read pertained to him. He should be so important, yes? But it worked, like it always used to, and it wasn't until today that I felt the overriding urge to rise above and not let his weak attempt at punishing me win. Again.

Why? Because I took my boots back. Willingly. Those high black suede numbers with the sexy heel that I couldn't really afford and didn't really need but had to have because...they were there. Why did I take them back?

Because. My store was busy today, the staff was light because of the flu and the lines at the cashwrap long.

I usually do what I can to avoid ringing at a register, this time by following some guy with a very large open backpack who is talking to himself (hopefully, and not to Richard Nixon like the guy last week) but I have to step up and do the right thing when the natives on the checkout line start getting restless and look at me with anxious disdain.

So, while ringing at an almost cardio-vascular pace, trying to get through the line quickly, a woman approaches my register with four kids in tow, the oldest a boy probably about 11. Each has a book in their hand and smile on their face and they take turns coming up to put their little treasures on the counter in front of me. I say, "Wow, something for everybody!" and the mom smiles at me in that tired kind of way that only a mother of four can, and hands off the youngest girl to the oldest boy to hold. The little one squeales with delight and drops her binky on the floor and all three jump to pick it up for her. This is a tight knit little family and from they way they are dressed it looks like their band of togetherness is out of necessity.

The mom reaches into her tattered wallet while I am ringing up their books and pulls out a B&N gift card. It has $50 written on it black marker, and her total comes to just under that. I run the card through and it shows to have only $6.46 left on it. And I tell her this.

She looks at me, stunned. Her middle daughter stands leaning up against the counter, looking up at her mom with alarm that is about to turn into a knowing, resigned sadness.

"But it says 50 dollars," she says to me with a blank look on her face. I tell her I am sorry, but it must have already been used - does she remember using it before today? "No, we've never come in here before. Sometimes we go to the library..." The kids nod at me and the baby starts to get restless, in reality too big for the 11 year old boy to hold for too long.

Mom just stands there blankly looking at me for what seems like 5 minutes. I ask her if she wants me to just void the transaction and she just stares, wide-eyed. Her middle daughter starts to tear up.

Mom then tells me that they are in transitional housing, that someone had donated the gift card to the house for her to buy Christmas presents for her kids and that she doesn't know why they would do such a thing if it wasn't worth anything...

I can feel the knot start to form in my chest. She opens her bag and takes her wallet out again and doesn't say a word, just starts to count her cash, which is obviously way too little to cover her bill. "Can I give you this much in cash and then..." She stares at a credit card that I am now pretty certain is only for emergencies, and I am feeling an overwhelming empathy for this woman, knowing how much this is really going to cost her.

I say, Yes, of course. I take her 18 dollars in cash and then reluctantly, oh so painfully, take her credit card and swipe it through. I hear myself say, almost in a whisper, "God, I would give it to you myself if only I could..."

But I know that I can't. Because I was feeling low and unloved yesterday and went into DWS before work to buy them damned boots.

She shrugs her shoulders in resignation, mumuring that it's been a hard couple of years. But she clearly, oh so absolutely loves her children and will not disappoint them.

I am bereft. All I can do is say quietly that I know where she's coming from and that I know that if it can pass for me, it can pass for her too. She smiles and says, "It's already starting to." And I lean over the counter, and through the lump in my throat I say to her little girl, "You've got such an awesome mom, right?" To which the little girl smiles at me proudly.

As I watch them walk out the door with their new little books, I know that I have to get off the floor - fast. So I leave the rest of them, the restless natives on line, and walk back into the office and allow myself to weep like a child.

I've been there, standing on line with my DSHS card and my one dollar bills stuck together, bargain shopping for toilet paper and pricing out boxes of macaroni and cheese. I've come to the point where I've had to ask for money from people I know are going to spit obscenities at me first before begrudging relenting.

And yet, I've been there too when friends who barely know me from The Rooms hand me a check and say they don't want to hear about it, take Sasha to a movie and go have some fun. And when friends who do know me, with barely a word, pay my bills.

Sometimes it just takes what it takes for me to wake up and see what I really have around me. Today I have heat in my condo when a only year ago I lived in a house with none. Today I have an incredible group of friends who do, yes, actually do love me - very much. Today I am in a position, regularly, to be of service to others, sometimes even financially, if only in a small way. The list could go on for pages, but this is getting longer than I planned and I'm going to be late for work.

Today I am an incredibly fortunate woman. Who really doesn't even like boots all that much. And today I gratefully returned them.

As for my ex, all I can say is...I'm back...

That, and that Anne LaMotte said it perfectly: "If you wanted to be written about nicely, then you should have behaved better."