These boots were made for walkin…

A sentence to be wary of in any on line profile is “I like cowboy boots.” Take it from me.

It was one of those rare, rainy California weekends. The kind of indoor day that drives me to the net to pass the time. It so happened that I’d been chatting online, back and forth with a guy via email for a while. Will and I had gotten to the point of exchanging numbers and were around to the point of actually speaking on the phone.

You can tell a lot from a person by their voice. Someone might be able to maintain a fun face behind their email program, but it’s a lot harder to hide being a dud when you’re on the phone. From our conversation, all seemed normal and nice. Will and I shared musical tastes, we were around the same age, had comparable senses of humor - these are all good things to have in common.

So after an hour or so of chatting on the phone I agreed to drive on over, we could watch a bit of television, chat in person, maybe head out for a coffee or something.

Upon arrival, Will meets me on the landing in jeans, boots, a white t-shirt. He ushers me into his apartment where a Seinfeld rerun is just beginning. All normal there. He offers me some bottled water, and then asks “Do you like cowboy boots?”

Now, this is not a question I generally get, or, truth be told, expect. I often get where are you from, how long have you been growing your hair, do you pay taxes, are you legal, that sort of thing.

Thinking fast I explain that I don’t “own” any cowboy boots, but, I have in fact worn them on stage for several shows I’ve been in. Truthfully I only remember wearing them in Annie Get Your Gun, but I probably wore them in another production at some point.

My answer seems to please Will. He follows his first question up with “Would I feel embarrassed wearing them in public.” A little strange, but, I answered, that, no, I don’t think I would be.

Now, while I found it strange, the question caused me to have a sort of out of body experience. I was suddenly caught in a vision of all the “Help Desk”/Technical support assistance guys I’ve known at previous jobs. I could see the guys wearing cowboy boots with their acid wash jeans, old heavy metal rock concert t-shirts from the 1980s that they haven’t been able to give up tucked in and belted tight. The Scorpions logo stretched across an ever-expanding waistline.

I really need to learn to say “yes”.

Anyway, Will was delighted with my answer, and, he ran into the bedroom and returns with 3 pairs of cowboy boots; camel brown, black, and taupe. Will then asked me to put on the pair that I liked best.

Which is how I came to find myself on his couch, bottled water in hand and a pair of tight fitting black cowboy boots watching Seinfeld, desperate for the show to end so I can put my nice Rockport blue shoes back on and leave.