Wicked Good

This term describes many, many things. Today it’s all about my slippers.

My favorite season of the year is fall. I love everything about it; the warm earthy reds, yellows and oranges that are painted along the landscape and spattered in the changing leaves of the trees, the cool crisp air that is perfect for donning a sweatshirt to keep you warm, the smell of apples and cinnamon and candy corn. It’s time for soup to simmer on the stove and greet you on your return from the local football game.

As a kid I enjoyed crunching dried leaves with a big stomp. The good ones always sound like a whole bag of potato chips being crunched. I still like to do that, especially with my kids. It looks like a perfectly choreographed stomping dance as our quick feet try to get the dried brown leaf skipping by on the breeze. They seem to dance better than me these days and always catch the “chips”.

When the kids were small, I found that catalog shopping was the easiest and best thing around. Internet was just coming into its own. I remember a segment on the Today Show with Katie Couric and Bryant Gumble with Katie trying to spit out “www dot address dot com. Boy is that a mouthful!” There was no Internet shopping yet. It was still the old fashioned way of calling the 800 number and providing the item number and your credit card, to a LIVE person, I might add. Three to five days later, your merchandise would be delivered.

One fall day, I had enough of my feet being cold. Our house had hardwood floors and being a very old home, was on the drafty side. I wore socks ALL the time. On this day, I grabbed the LL Bean catalog from the recently delivered mail and started to look at the slipper section. I came to a page that had “Wicked Good Slippers”. I read the description and caught the price- $70.00! Like I said, I had enough and picked up the phone and ordered a pair. My husband freaked when he heard I paid that kind of money for a pair of slippers. Since my birthday is in the fall, I considered it close enough to justify it as a present.

Three days later my parcel arrived. I could not wait to open the box and slip my feet into these soft, warm, cozy, shearling fleece footwear that would envelop my foot on cold mornings. That’s what the description said and that is what I expected when I put them on. I was not disappointed. These things WERE WICKED GOOD! I wore them constantly and my feet were never cold again! I ended up owning this particular pair for over 10 years! I definitely got my money’s worth, that’s for sure.

As I am definitely a woman of function over fashion, I would bring my WG’s in a plastic bag to neighbors’ houses so that my feet would not be cold after removing my shoes. I would get a few chuckles over this, but I started to notice that when neighbors started to get together, I was seeing more and more plastic shopping bags under their arms containing warm footwear!

Two years ago, under the Christmas tree, I opened a familiar brown box and inside was a brand new pair of Wicked Good slippers. I think my family was sick of looking at my old decrepit friends who were worn down to the sheepskin with no warm fleece left. Or maybe they were starting to get embarrassed by what was coming out of my plastic bag. Either way, they are making sure that my feet stay toasty.

I know fall is officially here, because today I took my WG’s out of the closet and slipped them on. They will now be my constant companions until the tulips break through the ground in the spring.

The leaves are still morphing into their beautiful hues and not too many are on the ground just yet. But when you see them, dance the dance and I hope you land a “Wicked Good” crunchy one!