I was probably 6 or 7 when my parents brought out a brand new pair of rubber boots for the younger kids in my family. They beamed when they did. It was almost as if they were giving us a lesser super power.
It was a beautiful spring day. The season was probably the reason for this gift. The mud of spring is almost legendary. So I put on my brand new boots and went outside. Our neighbour had just recently plowed his field.
But instead of circling this field, I knew that I could head through it in any direction I saw fit. So I headed out straight across it in the way the crow flies. And indeed it was more or less fine getting halfway across this field.
But I guess I just ran out of luck for suddenly one of my boots just went “Sploosh!” and I couldn’t lift it back out of the mud. I didn’t know what to do or what had happened. I guess it was just the suction power of the mud. I gripped on to the sides of the upper boot and pulled but still couldn’t get it to lift. No matter how hard I tried to pull I just couldn’t lift that boot out of the mud.
Nowadays I realize I could have dug with my hands at the outside of the boot and eventually I would have gotten it out. But my hands and upper clothing would have been very muddy. I didn’t think of this and eventually I just abandoned that boot. I slipped my foot out of the trapped boot and and walked back to the non muddy area.
My sock and pants were very muddy of course. Plus I no longer had a pair of rubber boots. Just a single boot. I don’t recall getting in trouble. I realized having the boots wasn’t a lesser super power. Or, if it was, it was one that you had to have knowledge about to wield properly.
I only had a lesser super power for about a half hour. I must say for most of that half hour I was enjoying it.
So that boot was stuck in the middle of the field. I don’t know what the neighbour planted that year, whether it was corn or a grain. But I can imagine a family with a bag of corn asking, “Doesn’t this corn taste a bit rubbery to you?”
“Why yes it does. Perhaps we should return it.”
I’m sorry family, I didn’t mean to mess up your meal.
