These boots arrived as I was leaving Thursday. As I walked out the front door of my building, the UPS gal walked in. She had a large box with my name on it. I knew what it was.
“Thankyouveddymuch,” I said, and signed for it.
I set the box in the back seat and hit the road. As I sped north to Door County, I periodically looked at the box over my shoulder, the way a mother checks up on a baby in a car seat. I adjusted the rearview mirror a few times over the course of my five-hour trip, looking back to beam at the box. I had been anticipating these boots for many moons.
My final destination would be our family’s cottage, but I wouldn’t be able to make it there that night, so I had a reservation at the Holiday Music Motel, my favorite place to spend the night outside of the Ritz Carlton in Paris (I’ve never been there.) The Holiday Music is clean, adorable, and affordable, and they have great coffee, cozy linens, and have somehow managed to do retro decor well. Not easy.
When I got to the motel, I checked in and like a badger with a sandwich, I tore into the box. Tissue paper went flying. Plastic was tossed. The black Saint Laurent box nearly glowed. I pulled the boots from the pretty cloth bag and sighed a deeply contented sigh. They’re better than I even hoped and they fit perfectly.
The word “incongruous” means “not in harmony or keeping with the surroundings or other aspects of something.” Those boots looked so out of place in the Holiday Music Motel that they entered into a kind of zen belonging. Delicious.
I was traveling alone, but that night, I had two bedfellows: the right shoe and the left one.