A few years ago I was in the market for a new pair of boots. After quite a bit of looking, I settled on a nice pair of ostrich boots I found in the Lucchese catalog. I was looking forward to my first pair of Luccheses. However, my patience would be tested, since the boots were not scheduled for production for several weeks.
In the meantime, I shared with several coworkers my excitement about my new boots. Our office is full of boot wearers, so the subject comes up quite often around the break room table. It turns out, I might have done a little too much talking about my new boots.
Months went by until finally one Friday evening I was checking email from home. I had been on the road that day and hadn’t seen any email all day. You might ask why this is important to the story. The answer is my inbox contained the email I had been waiting for all those months. The email was from the lady in our office mail room with the simple subject line, “You have a UPS package.”
I was so excited. The only UPS package I was expecting was my boots. I certainly couldn’t wait until Monday to get them and could barely wait until Saturday to make a special trip to the office to get them.
When I arrived at the office I grabbed the box and headed to my office to have my first look. My first disappointment came as I opened the box and saw the boots were brown, not black like I ordered. As I opened the box further, I saw the boots were not even the style I had ordered. When I pulled one of the boots out, I noticed some dried manure on the sole – they weren’t even new!
As I processed what was happening, several thoughts went through my mind. Maybe it was a simple mistake. Maybe someone at the factory liked my boots so much they switched their old ones for mine. Or – maybe my coworkers were playing a prank on me.
The boots looked a little familiar to me. But the box didn’t look like it had been tampered with. It even had the fancy official UPS plastic strap around it.
I decided the quickest action I could take was a search of the office. My first stop was my prime suspect’s office. Nothing. I checked a few other offices then decided to confront the prime suspect directly.
He picked up his cell phone right away. I tried to play it cool with some small talk before springing the trap on him. “What size boots do you wear?” The boots in the box are size 12. Empty trap – he said he wore 10s. Convinced (good liar) he didn’t know anything about it, I told him what had happened. Still nothing to tip me off he was a conspirator.
I called the retailer, called Lucchese, began forming a posse. I even tried contacting Walker and the other Texas Rangers. My boots were missing and had to be found! Being a Saturday, I didn’t get very far and decided the investigation would have to wait until Monday.
Monday morning, one of my coworkers stops by my office to ask a question. I was a little distracted and didn’t notice her new boots right away. When I did, I knew I had been had. Call off the posse, stand down Walker, Texas Ranger.
I learned several things from this experience. One – the Luccheses were well worth the wait. Two – I can’t trust my coworkers. And three, don’t ever have anything personal shipped to the office again!
