Brown Boots & Ex Central

“Are you going to country bar?” S1 asked me last night at dinner.
“Nah, don’t think so.” I said.
“Oh, common! You have your boots on and everything”, she said.

Looking down at my brown boots I agreed. But, these were the brown boots, though. Not the black ones – a big difference. The brown ones represent “Hi, I’m safe. Not looking for anything wild and crazy tonight – see I match your jacket and everything and we’re just safe, brown boots.” But, if I had the black ones on – well, then – watch out. The black boots represent – yes, I’m an outlaw and I’m out on a tear tonight so watch out!” The black boots are the shit kickers fer sure.

“Well, I could swing by there on the way home, it’s on the way and I cannot get into too much trouble because of the brown boots.”

Walking into the bar I run into an old friend and we talk for a while. The place is heating up. I notice a hot little number right beside me.

Sidebar: This is the thing. Women who are interested but too shy to break the ice will get as close to you as possible but still have their back to you while they pretend to be really engrossed in their friends.

I turn to the woman and say hi and she smiles and says hi back. I ask her to dance and we go out onto the dance floor. As we’re dancing she said, “Hi, my name is [insert same name as ex gf here]” I chuckle and said, “It figures” It’s loud and she said, “What?” and I said, “I said my name is D”. We walk off the dance floor and talk for a bit. She lives in a suburb waaay far away and has two kids at the babysitter. Ok, moving on.

I notice another hottie leaning against the wall right next to me. She looks young. I walk over and talk to her and we go out and dance. “Hi, my name is [insert same name as ex – AGAIN]. I almost stopped dancing. Is this some kind of crazy-ass joke?

IS EVERY DAMN WOMAN I MEET IN THE BAR GOING TO BE MY EX GF’S NAME?

–Sigh-

We walk off the floor. She also lives in a town far, far away. And, is 27 and lives with her parents. Moving on again.

I walk over to the other side of the bar and before I realize it I am wedged between the ex gf BEFORE ex gf. (Let’s call her “K”). And, on the other side is KC who I had an unfortunate misunderstanding with a few weeks ago.

Great. What do I do now?

The only thing to do is to act like you have the black boots on and be cool. So, I did.

I am nonchalantly texting this girl in CA and looking bored. Just then “K” grabs me from behind and is looking all happy to see me. This is a trick – I know this girl. She can be very mean – hence why we broke up. We talk for a bit – her gf is out of town – hence why she is being so nice to me. As we’re talking KC walks over and says “Hi”.

Go figure. It pays to act like I have black boots on.

Then, I notice a girl beside me and she turns and said, “Hi, my name is….” I stopped her and said, “Let me guess – I’m good at these things. [ex gf name], right?” She clapped her hands and said, “Right! How did you guess?”

“Just lucky, I guess”

I have to get out of here.

Just then a slow song comes on and I pull 27 year old onto the dance floor. We are dancing and RIGHT beside us is KC dancing with someone looking at me over her partner’s shoulder.

I really do have to get out of here and I have to get these boots off.

After the dance I said goodbye to ALL of the [ex gf’s names] and turn on my heel and leave the bar. Walking to my car I wonder if my brown boots took on the persona of the black boots that night. Like they were trying to tell me that they were just as dangerous as the black and decided to push the gamut. Like “Haha, we showed you!"

Regardless, once home and am fumbling in the dark to get my boots off my phone blinks – I have a text message – from ex gf.