Of Boots and Bullying

There was one of those Q&A memes going around the other week that said to "focus on your senior year of high school" and then answer the questions.  They were things like "What kind of car did you drive?" or "Where did you work?"  One question asked what your favorite shoes were, and I wrote "All of them" because hi, have you met me?  But that got me thinking about shoes in high school, even now, weeks later.

Yeehaw, bitches!

My love affair with shoes started eons ago, long before high school (my first pair of leather cowboy boots were red; I was five years old and I wore them to stomp on spiders at my dad's farmhouse).  But by the time I reached high school, I was starting to earn money here and there from work, babysitting, etc.  And I (very slowly) learned how to (very slowly) save up money from those things and my allowance and whatever else came my way.  And even though I knew my mother wouldn't approve, I started to use that money to buy my own shoes from a women's shoe store at the mall (THE mall, we only had the one).



With my heart pounding, I walked into the mall store with, y'know, grown-ups shopping -- I still remember it had mustard-colored walls and unflattering fluorescent lighting.  Then, just as now, I hit the sale and clearance section first.  I may love shoes, but I'm also a cheap bitch and don't like spending a ton of money on a single pair of shoes; my cut off seems to be fifty dollars..  And at age 16, fifty bucks was a lot of money, period, let alone on one purchase.  And I found them.  And they were still on sale.  And in my size.  It was love at first sight between me and a pair of knee-high, black leather, stiletto-heeled boots.  I shelled out my hard-earned cash, and I was even tempted to put them on right there in the store and wear them around the mall.  But I didn't.

A li'l something like this

I did go home and try to hide their existence from my mother for as long as possible.  That probably lasted a day, maybe two.  And she was not happy with my purchase.  My mother was far from a prude when it came to how I dressed in high school.  She was all for figure-flattering outfits and things, including some that were borderline trashy (and I wore anyway).  But black leather CFM boots were a line she wasn't willing to cross for her 16-year-old daughter.  But more than that, she objected to the amount of money I spent.

She flat-out told me I couldn't wear them (though I don't recall her saying that I had to return them).  And I naturally asked (read:  "whined"), "Why?"  It was my money, wasn't it?  They were just shoes (boots), weren't they?  Where's the problem?

My mother was unable to articulate the world's hypersexualization of teenage girls, the sexual connotation that boots have due mostly to the patriarchy, the fetishes associated with black leather.  And in the back of my mind, there was a slight tug that the boots were somehow "inappropriate," but all the facts on the surface said it wasn't any big deal.

So I wore them.  I even wore them to school one fine fall day, below my plaid Catholic school girl skirt, and garnered more than one disconcerted look from some teachers, but not a one of them said anything directly to me.  As they weren't sandals or tennis shoes, I was still complying with our dress code.

Somewhere in this same time period, I saved up my allowance and bought another pair of knee-high leather boots.  These, however, were flats (gasp!) and made of suede instead of regular leather.  They had a large kind of patchwork pattern on them made of jewel-toned suede squares -- emerald, magenta, black, and dark teal.  They laced all the way up the back.  They were the kind of boots that would look awesome at a ren fair or with a Robin Hood outfit.  I had plans to wear them with my costume for madrigal singing.

Imagine these 4 pairs of boots had a beautiful 1990s baby

Later that year, we were on a school trip for an acting competition with events like improv, choral reading, one acts, solo interp, duo interp, etc.  A group of about twenty of us arts/theatre students, freshmen through seniors, were there together competing in events against other schools.  I was probably a junior.  I wore the jewel-toned jester boots over my jeans and was feeling pretty fabulous.

And every now and then that morning, I would feel a tug at the back of my leg.  But when I would glance behind me, no one was there.  And it wasn't happening all the time -- just intermittently, and I couldn't find the rhyme, reason, or pattern as to why or when.  I felt it when going up the bleachers in the auditorium for the morning announcements/introductions.  I felt it when sitting at the lunch tables in the cafeteria with my classmates.

And somewhere in the early afternoon I discovered the culprit: a fellow student, one of my own group (so another theatre person) had tied the laces of my boots (because they laced up the back, remember?) together.  At the back.  But not so tightly or close together that I couldn't walk outright.  I still had a couple of inches to spare; hence, why I only felt the tug during certain activities.

And I no longer felt fabulous.

Instead, I felt crushed, embarrassed, defeated.  Had they been tied together all morning? How did he do it without me noticing?  Did everyone know except me?  Were they all secretly (or sometimes not so secretly) laughing at me?  I was humiliated and a little betrayed.  Even though I wasn't close friends with my fellow performers, we had at least had that arts-theatre-not-a-jock bond in common and were from the same school, traveling together, competing with each other against the other schools.  But I was still ostracized and bullied by the very people you would think would understand what that feels like.

And even typing it out now, the fact that someone tied my shoelaces together in a public place, is humiliating and upsetting, and it happened nearly thirty years ago.

I cried in the bathroom at that strange, out of town school and tried to go on about my day, seeing the other events and trying desperately not to feel self-conscious about my choice in shoes (boots) -- and failing miserably.  I didn't confront my classmates or the particular "suspect."  I didn't tell a soul, and I've never told the story until now.  I don't think I ever wore those suede boots again.  A year or two later, post-high school, I went looking for them (having conveniently forgotten about this incident), and they had disappeared.