Monday was my nine year old's first day of camp. We were all pretty excited about it, him for getting to go to camp for a week, me for him being gone at camp all week. A real win, win situation, if you know what I mean.
All week I had been getting his bag ready, making mental notes of the things I would need to purchase at the store for him and checking to make sure that the sun screen I had wasn't expired. So Sunday evening around six I got online to double check everything and saw a link for a parent handbook. Out of sheer boredom I clicked on it only to find out that the particular camp my son was attending required him to have smooth soled, non-vibram, boots. After figuring out what vibram is, and concluding that all shoes owned by my son are indeed vibram soled, I realized that I was going to have to venture out on the town at 6:30 on a Sunday evening looking for child sized cowboy boots. In Fairbanks, Alaska. Right.
We have two options that late on a Sunday. Walmart or Fred Meyer's. I tried Freddy's first, purely because I loathe going to Walmart on a weekend and avoid it at all cost, the aisles are usually filled with mouth breathing rednecks on a weekend. Struck out at Freddy's so off we trek to Walmart. After wandering through the shoe aisles with no hope to speak of I find two types of women's cowboy(girl?) boots. My son is dubious to say the least, but he is just as desperate as I am at this point. I convince him that his jeans will cover the tops and only the bottom of the boot will show. No one will know, I say to him. We find a pair that is only slightly too big and make our purchase. I won't go into how much they were, it makes me a little stabby. ($28!! I know! It's crazy!)
So we rush home and I tell him to go grab a pair of jeans to try on over the boots and go show his dad. He goes in all proud and shows dad who says, "Aren't those girl boots?" Yes. He. Did. I now have to convince my son all over again that he will not get beat up for wearing girl boots.
I pick him up tomorrow morning, so I hope that what I told him was true.
