This story happened back in the winter of 2003/2004 in Charlotte NC. It was cold and rainy...lower 40's and straight torrential downpour all day. I was working as one of the very few bike messengers in town then. Id also moved from Denver to Charlotte a few months earlier to get a change of scenery after some "Life" events here. Anywho...
I showed up at the coffee shop where I met my morning crew of friends/coworkers. Bill Fehr, Josh...aka...Slim Rookie and "Bill Nye the Science Guy"(not really but this guy was super smart and I think is working towards a PhD currently) all got there at for our morning cup of coffee. It was shitty outside...pure and simple. Everyone had their own foul weather garb on in their own fashion. Now, coming from Denver and spending a couple bad winters here had increased my foul weather gear. The guys in Charlotte were all locals and their version was a bit different...Im originally from there but had been gone for quite some time.
As they all sat down and we were taking off the gloves and hats and raincoats so we could dry out a bit with our cup o joe, the guys noticed I was wearing one piece of clothing none of them had anything close to, and it wasnt something crazy. It was my neoprene, fleece lined booties...aka..."boots". Now I didnt know it would lead to anything at this point, except an insane amount of ribbing from my friends about ridiculous I looked with "those things on yer feet". They laughed and joked...kinda felt like the kid in high school with the big zit on your face for school picture day.
So, we all left as the work started piling up on our dockets and we decided to meet for some lunch later.
After about 4hrs of non stop humping packages, envelopes and court filings in the crappy day...no the rain did not stop one bit...I made my way to our lunch "meeting". It was inside the main food court in one of the bigger office buildings downtown. All the players were there. Cold, soaked, shivering, just plain ole exhausted. The cold will do that to you. Ive actually lost weight in winter before because it takes so much energy to stay warm.
Everyone was telling the typical messenger story of where they'd been, how crappy it was, the driver that sprayed them on purpose...etc. Then it came to the actual physical manifestations we all had from the day. What was still dry, what as wet but warm, you get the drift. Then Slim Rookie made a comment about his hands and feet feeling "like pieces of wood"...cold dead wood. I snickered at him. He looked at me and asked how I was doing. My reply..."just toasty as all get out thank you". I told him my feet were wet, but warm as can be, and the extra pairs of socks Id packed helped keep my feet from at least getting too prune-y from the water. Otherwise, the "funny things" on my feet were awesome. It was at that point that josh asked, almost begged, me to give them to him for the rest of the day. I laughed...hard. I told him in a few other words to go pound sand. He laughed and said something back that slips my mind at the moment.
Lunch ended and we all went back to humpin packages for the afternoon. That evening, we all went home quick and got warm after that crappy day. It went on like that for about a week...the rain and chilly temps. Then it cleared up and warmed up.
I was sitting on a bench waiting for work one day when I heard this singy high pitched voice singing "booooOOOOOooots" out of the corner of my ear. You know, that "hearing" you get when someone is talking to you, but you really have no idea why? So I looked around and saw Slim Rookie and Bill riding up. When asked what he was really saying...cause I didnt understand why he would be singing "boots" to me...Slim said it was because of that shitty rainy day when I showed up with them on. I thought that was pretty funny.
So, from there on, every time I saw those guys I heard the name "boots".
Thats that...see told ya it wasnt pulitzer winning material, but at least its got a story that goes with it. Unlike names frat boys give themselves because of how they take a dump, Ill gladly take this nickname.
...Boots out.
Boots
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