jakorte's blog

It could only happen to me. I bought a pair of Sporto winter boots – the practical side of me finally admitting that I live in Michigan. Waterproof and lined, but also really sporty – printed in a delightful and very me pink, yellow and pea green paisley. I’ve been wearing them with thick socks - because I live in Michigan. Duh.

Well, we ventured out of our non-daylight work habitat today and actually went to a real sit down restaurant for soup and salad. Because it was above 30 degrees, I decided to be brave (aka lazy) and forgo the socks and just insert my stocking feet into my groovy boots. So, I’m walking along and I feel a weird lumpy sensation under my right foot. I'm thinking it must be the DSW red-sticker label that I never took out of the boot. Ok, that’s what laziness will get you. Whatever.

Back at the office, it’s off with the boots, on with the dress shoes. I decided to take out the offending sticker, and ended up with something I’ve never seen before. As I pealed the purposefully very sticky sticker off in tiny pieces, I piled them up on my desk. It took me until about the 3rd piece to understand what I was really looking at. I very much doubt this is the newest technology in theft reduction.

Here’s the thing. Someone had stuffed lead shot under the red-sticker label. Seriously, I recovered about 15 of the little bb’s, in all. Wow. I suspect that someone who thought they very clever wanted these boots, bad. I’m theorizing they either couldn’t afford them or they just wanted to wait for the 60% off reduction. I paid for them at 40% off, plus I had a ten dollar coupon. They were mine for $12.50.Yes, I’m proud of that. Not so proud of the 10 wearings before I noticed the inventive discouragement attempt, though. I think someone normal might have noticed that a little earlier. I guess it really doesn’t matter if you’re a shoe coveting genius, there’s always some dingbat out there who can mess with your good plan. So, the next time you try on a lumpy shoe at DSW, check for buckshot. You just might end up getting a dreamy pair of shoes, and thwarting a weird buckshot sticker stuffer.

The evidence is on my desk in a forensic envelope.
Feel free to come by and observe.
For those of you not lucky enough to be a local and enjoying the 20 inches of boot worthy accumulated snow this week, the photos will be posted on myspace shortly.