Yer gonna pay f'r that, pilgrim.

Today I solved yet another mystery that I never wondered about before.

You know how cowboys walk in the movies? That slow, relaxed, slightly stiff-legged, swaggering strut that makes the spurs jingle so nicely?

Hollywood didn't make it up. At least I don't think so. I think cowboys really move like that.

It's the only comfortable way to walk in those boots.

I delivered a load this morning, only nine and a half hours late.* As it turns out, due to oddities in their receiving hours, this wasn't too much of a disaster. And I ingratiated myself by helping one of their customers back her pickup and trailer out of a dead end she'd accidentally trapped herself in.** So everyone was friendly as I pulled out of the parking lot and headed west to my next pickup.

When I got there the gate guard smiled, and looked at my papers, and went over the company rules with me. At which point I realized I was in trouble.

I started this week in a hurry. Five days ago I called in and said “When do I take the truck out tomorrow?” And they said “You take it out today.” It was after lunch when this happened. So I did a lot of throwing things in the duffel bag and rushing out to the car. And I just KNEW I'd forgotten something.

Turns out it was shoes.

When I got in the truck in Atlanta, the weather was warm and pleasant. River sandals were most comfortable. And the weather has been mostly pleasant this week. Even in Pennsylvania, I could walk on top of the packed snow in above-freezing temperatures, wearing a pair of socks under the sandal straps. Those sandals are more comfortable than almost any pair of shoes I've ever owned, in these conditions.

But some places require you to wear something over your toes. Leather, at the very least.

I can't say I blame them—I've actually thought about a pair of steel-toed shoes myself, just to be overly careful. After all, I spend a lot of time in warehouses and lumberyards and things, just full of forklifts and jacks and piles of really heavy stuff that sometimes fall over and squash things. Like toes. So when a shipper or a receiver insists I put on real shoes, I smile and rummage in the duffel.

And usually I pull the shoes out and put them on.

Not this time.

After a few minutes poking into every corner of the truck, I faced the truth. And considered my options. There weren't many. After all, how many shoe stores have parking for eighteen-wheelers?

The only place I was sure would have both shoes and a parking space was a truck stop a couple of miles down the road. I'd never been there, but it was part of a chain I frequent; and their truck stops almost always have shoes in the travel store. In fact, last time I was in one, they'd had some inexpensive running/hiking shoes on sale.

So I made my apologies to the nice people at the shipper and made my way to the truck stop. And sure enough, they had shoes. They even had reasonably priced shoes.

Just not in my size.

They didn't even have unreasonably priced shoes in my size.

The only thing they had in my size was cowboy boots.

It took me something like thirty minutes to find even those. Cowboy boots don't fit the same way the shoes I usually buy do. It took some experimenting to find something I could walk in. And when I'd managed it, I found I had three styles to choose from:

A black pair with some kind of silver cap-like thing on the toe, that make me look like I was going to a Dwight Yoakam concert

The same style, in a color they called “black cherry”

And a more-or-less undecorated pair with low tops and zippers on the side.

I went for low profile. They cost a bit more (the other two pairs were on sale), but I was paying way too much anyway, so what the heck.

A hundred dollars to pick up a trailer-full of scrap metal. The things I do for this job.

At length I got back to the shipper, put my new boots on, and got out to walk to the shipping office. And within two steps I found myself frantically adjusting my stride several ways at once.

I mustn't bend the ankle much, I quickly discovered. Between the high heels and the high tops, flexing the ankle dug the boot-tops into my shins while throwing me slightly off balance. And if I didn't flex the ankle (much), I couldn't take as quick a step as I was used to. Not to mention the heel driving straight into the asphalt and jarring me clear through the knees and into the hips. So within ten feet I found myself walking at about half the speed I usually do.

Usually, I walk more or less flatfooted, my soles skimming the ground. Now the heel came down well before anything else, and I had to “roll” the foot forward to get the rest of the shoe on the pavement. And I soon figured out that the knee had to be in the right place, too, or I would feel it in the tendons along the side. To keep the knee lined up, I had to use the hips a little differently. And so on.

By the time I'd reached the office, I was walking in a slow, steady rhythm, slightly stiff-legged, with the tiniest twist to the hips with each step. I could almost hear it.

Ching. Ching. Ching. Ching...

The things you learn being a trucker.

- - - - -
*See here if you're really curious about why. Don't if you're not.

**Backing a trailer is something I do a fair bit of (surprise), and it's harder than it looks.
As it turned out, I was caught a little off guard myself. All the problems are more or less the same, but that tiny trailer could come around a lot quicker than the 53-foot monsters I'm used to. And if I'd jack-knifed it instead of her--
--come to think of it, maybe I didn't back her trailer out of that spot. If the Company's lawyers ask you about this, you imagined it...