The Trouble and The Stinky

My wife calls this picture "The Trouble and the Stinky", a very adequate description based on the fact that the cat, Keeley (ancient Celtic for little warrior) is currently trying to climb out our third story window and the boots are fermenting by our credenza. She's younger than the boots by about five years.

When I was in the fire academy I was told I needed to get steel toed boots or I would be ejected. So for Christmas my family bought me a pair of side zippered steel toe and shank boots that I have worn ever since.

Over the years those boots have been through a lot. I have kicked them off haphazardly in an effort to get into bunker pants more times than I can count. They have trouped through the blood of the dead and dying, they have been vomited on, pissed on. Their steel toes have saved my flesh ones from certain destruction at the hands of countless falling objects ( I drop a lot of stuff).

They've rarely been polished, in fact the only time they were polished was for my academy graduation. Rarely I zip the sides of them, although while evacuating residents from the town I work for they were zipped tight for warmth. They have taken me into grungy disease infested houses for overdose victims and into cushy mansions for the same. They have taken me into the backrooms of people's apartments and buisness for stroke victims. I have rapelled off of buildings in them and climbed into pipes barely large enough for my shoulders to pass through. They have kicked in doors and stood as a brace for the stretcher on an incline. And everytime I start an IV, the stillete falls to the floor of the ambulance only to be covered by the right boot, waiting for me to pick it up to get a sugar from the blood in the flashback chamber.

These boots have been filled with shaving cream by fellow firefighters, glued to the floor and when I worked in Manchester tossed into the ambulane bay by a fellow EMT because they smelled so bad. No amount of odor eaters will ever cut six years worth of sweat but these boots will stay on my feet until they fall apart....which reminds me that Righty (he likes when I call him that) needs a new insert.

I used to get threatened with demotions in the academy because they were never shined. Now as I look at them I wonder if I should break out one of the countless torn shirts I make my wife keep as rags and buy a tin of boot black......