My Destiny: Weekend at Home in Solitude

Hee hee, guess what.
I didn't make it to that Ben Nevis trip after all.
The odds were so dead set against me that I was obliged to stay at home all weekend.

Which is sort of wise, 'cos now I have more time to write my essays.

If I was a cunt, I'd hope it'll rain all weekend.
But I'm not a cunt.
I hope my dear Finnish friends will have a blast.
I will have a blast partying with topic sentences and thesis statements.

I see you wondering why I didn't go on the trip. You really wanna hear the whole story? Ok. Read on.

First of all, there was a problem with the new hiking boots. As you know, I bought a pair of brand new boots yesterday, and was so happy that I found them after all that desperate boot-hunting. But just like every time I'm boot-hunting, something went wrong again.

The boots felt really comfortable in the store. But when I got back home my feet were really swollen from seven hours of walking on concrete, and suddenly, as I tried the boots on again, they felt a bit tight. Well, not just a BIT, but EXTREMELY tight. My toes were squeezed. However, I decided to sleep over the night and try them on the first thing in the morning.

So, this morning I jumped out of bed, slipped the boots on, had a walk around the flat, and DAMN IT, they were still too tight! I therefore decided to make a quick visit to the centre after my literature tutorial and change the boots to another model I tried on yesterday, which was my second choice. That visit would've only taken an hour.

IF IT HAD SUCCEEDED.

I'll return to that later, 'cos besides the boot problem, there was another snag in the picture. Last night I slept very, very badly, and in the morning the tiredness, dizziness, muscle pains, joint ache, and a runny nose made me realise I might actually be turning ill. When I came back home after my Scottish Literature tutorial at noon, I felt absolutely miserable.

I thought however that if I went on that trip and had a good night's sleep in the hut before Saturday's hiking expeditions, the supposed illness might disappear as fast as it came. The illness factor was thus declared null and void. It was the shoes that ruined the plan. This is what happened:


I took the bus to the centre and went to the store that had sold me the boots, Tiso Outdoor Experts on Buchanan Street.

Me: "Hey, I bought these boots yesterday but they turned out to be too tight after all, so I'd like to change them to another model."

Sales clerk: "That's fine, which model do you wanna try?"

Me: "The Scarpas, size 40, they were my second choice yesterday and now I'm pretty sure they are the right shoes for my feet."

SC: (looks for size 40 on the shelves) "Sorry, we don't have size 40 anymore, here's size 41, I think that'd be fine for your feet."

Me: (stupefied, thinking, "oh, this didn't go as smoothly as I planned") "What, the pair I tried on yesterday is gone already?! This is not happening, this is not happening."

SC: (who has actually tried to make me buy size 41 already last Saturday) "Well, you can always try on a different model..."

Me: "No, I've tried all of them already and the Scarpas are the ones I want."

SC: "Well, give size 41 a try."

So I try them on and walk around the shop.

Me: "They're a bit too loose."

SC: (who insists on size 41 and obviously, wants to make me buy something) "Let's try them with a volume reducer and see how they feel." (tucks a pair of volume reducers inside the shoes and hands them to me) "There you go."

So, I walk around the shop again, with the volumer reducers on for a good while.

Me: "Umm, this is so complicated, I'd like to buy shoes that fit immediately, without volume reducers and stuff, and actually these still feel a bit too loose. And I'd really like to compare them with size 40. Could you check if the bigger Tiso store has size 40 in these so that I could go there to compare?"

SC: "Yeah, sure." (goes to the computer and comes back) "Yes, they have three pairs of size 40 and size 41 as well."


So what happens is that I walk a long way to Tiso Outdoor Experience again, like on Tuesday, thinking that if everything goes smoothly I might still make it to the trip if I'm really quick. But oooh no.

Me: (entering the boot section of the store, trying to be very efficient and quick) "Hiya, where can I find size 40 on those Scarpas?"

SC: "Hmm...." (searches on the shelves) "It seems we don't have size 40, but here's size 41, you wanna try that?"

The sky crashes down on me and breaks my neck.
"No, no, no, they said in the other store that you'd have size 40 here!!"
"Oh, they did? They should've called us before they sent you here, the computer database is often outdated, they should know that."

At this point I felt a huge dick grow on my forehead (a literal translation of a Finnish saying that is the only and the best one to describe this situation).
I was so pissed off that I was actually on the verge of tears. Good god, how much bad luck can a person really have? First she buys a pair of comfortable shoes, which start to feel uncomfortable after a while (how can that happen, I wonder!), and then her other choice has been sold out in all of the shops in just 24 hours!

So, the selection of boot sizes at Tiso stores made the decision for me: I wouldn't go on that hiking trip but write essays instead.

On my way home I popped in every outdoor store I passed just out of curiosity, trying to find those Scarpas. The first store didn't have them, the second did but only size 42 (congratulations to them for good business sense), and the third one had them, IN SIZE 40, MY GOD!, but the shoes are hand-made, and for some reason inside the right shoe there was a quirky spot sticking out, rubbing my big toe, so I didn't take them ('cos I wasn't desperate and in a hurry anymore), but asked them to order me another pair of size 40 instead, hoping the other pair wouldn't have any hand-made flaws in them. I will get them next week, and hopefully, the dark clouds upon my head are gone by then.

So this is how I ended up staying at home. You still wonder why I don't always have the time to update my blog? It's because I spend all my time on this kind of absurdity! ;D