I tell people I can tell the temperature outdoors based on the color of a scar I got when I closed my eyes to better enjoy a song I was listening to while biking drunkenly at 2 AM on a Monday morning last summer, and immediately smashed into the side mirror of a pickup truck. In order to fully commit to my omniscient wound, I never check the weather. Short skirts and cold legs on a January morning are an unfortunate consequence of my faulty sixth sense, but as a Buffalo native I can always convince myself that I’ve endured colder, and will my goosebumps away. However, I can’t make my cheap combat boots that I got during a BOGO sale at Payless Shoesource in 2012, waterproof.
On February 9th, 2017, 7:00 AM, by way of a blaring alarm clock, I find out that my boyfriend, clearly not a Buffalo native, had planned on the both of us going on a snow hike through the woods behind Tabler Quad at the crack of dawn to see the first snowfall. Love makes people do crazy things, such as comply to such a ridiculous fucking thing while my snow boots are 322.8 miles away from me. My arm was pale the day I packed to return to campus after Winter Break, which is the human equivalent to the groundhog not seeing his shadow. The groundhog is often wrong.
Dressing for the occasion, my purple forearm convinced me that leggings and a sweater would suffice under my winter coat, but the combat boots would not. After spending two many half hour sessions utilizing my hairdryer to reverse the frostbite hinting at my toes on rainy Stony Brook days, I couldn’t bear the thought of snow seeping into holes in the sole, or the resulting smell of dried slush on my socks and forever lingering in my dorm.
Working in absolute darkness, trying to not awaken my two roommates, I went through my every belonging looking for an answer. Plastic bags that tuck into my socks? A makeshift waterproofing spray made of a mixture of every hair gel and spray I own? Sticky tack covering the sole? Plastic wrap around my foot, inside of my boot? Duct tape? Knockoff Dr. Scholl’s inserts, aka a thick layer of paper towels? Barefoot and let death crash over my feet like a quiet ocean wave?
Then I saw them.
The sleek, electric blue rain boots I got on a whim from the little boy’s section of Kmart. I was ready.
10 minutes into the hike I realized that the wide opening at the top of the boots served as a nice nesting area for snow to pack against itself. So my ankles were wet. But my toes were dry.