Late St Paddy's Day caption 🍀
Lizzy O'Niell had big boots for a small statured woman. She was by the good fortunes of her hardworking forbearers, a wealthy woman, and with her lifestyle came an expectation that things just happened. Or so Lizzy had thought until one fateful encounter.
In early Spring, sporadic showers still scattered paddles across the paths of the open farm were Lizzy liked to walk and see the animals. She pulled her big blue wellie boots out from the shoe rack only to to find a mouse had chewed a hole right through the toe of one of them.
Lizzy moaned and whined about not being able to go out to walk and how none of the online retailers could promise her a next day delivery for exact replacements of the boots she liked. Eventually, a fed up friend said, "You know it's St Patrick's Day? Not everywhere is open but look, why don't you try the shoe cobbler in the village. I know it's not Gucci but they should at least be able to patch the boot until your replacements come."
Lizzy only had only ever driven through the quaint little village near her country home, she had never found a reason to visit until now.
'Sullivans' shoemakers est. 1807' a painted sign about the shop read. The shoes in the small display window looked okay, they certainly weren't in vougue but Lizzy could at least recognise good craftsmanship when she saw it. She supposed it wouldn't hurt just to ask about the repair.
A bell chimed as she opened the door through the small, supprisingly dingy shoe shop. There was no showroom or sales floor, so to speak. She entered and was almost immediately conformed by a grimey timber counter, beyond which was a workshop cluttered with tools, benches and racks upon racks of shoes, shoe forms and bolts of materials.
"Yes?" came a croak over the whirring of lathe. From the gloom an elderly man came shuffling forward. First the round a gold frames of his glasses caught the light and then his red beard speckled with white. He wiped his gnarled hands on a cloth and laid them counter top. It wasn't often that Lizzy could look level at a man but this won must have been very bent and stooped on his old age. "How may I help you young lady?" he asked.
There was no sense in turning back now. Lizzy profered her holey boots.
"Would you be able to make a patch. I need it today."
The shoemaker pushed his glasses up the bridge his nose and turned the damaged boot over and over in his hands like one of those people who tries to map up the solution to a rubix cube in there head before twisting the sides.
"You know it's St. Patrick's day?“
"Yes. Why do people keep saying that? You are open arn't you?“
“To be sure, to be sure, to be sure..." he waved his spare hand. "I can patch these as good as new."
"Today?“
"Sure. You'll have to wait though. This is Italian made. Very fine. Will take some time." he wrote out a receipt and note that the boots were to be collected on carbon copy paper and handed the top sheet to Lizzy. "Come back later. Good as new, you'll see."
Lizzy took a deep breath as she exited the shop, it had been an odd experience, but it would be something to tell her friends about.
An hour and a half later, after coffee, Lizzy returned to the shop. She was shooed away. The boots weren't ready yet. She was cautioned to be patient.
So Lizzy went away and had her lunch but impatience brought her back to the shoe makers again and again her told her to come back later but to wait long enough for him to actually have finished the repair. Annoyingly though he wouldn't say exactly what time that might be.
Lizzy waited again, longer this time but eventually she felt like the day was slipping away from and surely it couldn't take all day long to repair a silly old boot? So she entered the shoemaker's store for the third time.
"Young lady, I thought I told you to be patient?“ said the old shoemaker gruffly.
"But I have been patient! Look, I just want to be able to go for a walk without getting my socks wet."
"Right so? Is that what you wish is it?“ the little cobbler asked.
"Yes."
"Well then. May the little lady go for her walk with no fear of wetting herself." he gave a sly grin and snapped his fingers.
"What? No, you rude old fart! You know what I mean." Lizzy snapped, not expecting to insulted. She hadn't wet herself since she was five. Not that that should have anything to do with boots.
To Lizzy's supprise, the cobbler's response to fetch her boots off a rack and he placed them on the counter. The patch was seamless, and matched the colour perfectly. They truly did look good as new.
"Just be sure to be patient and avoid the puddles. The patch is still curing and it will cause a leak if it gets wet." the cobbler warned.
Lizzy didn't listen. She had already left the cash and chimed out the door.
It was a thrill for her to finally be out walking, unperturbed by the muddy path, albiet she did carefully step by any puddles.
She was heading back home by the time she felt a twinge from her bladder. It was just a niggle at first but with each step it grew into a dull ache as she began to have to hold herself. She rarely felt the need to pee this badly and she was still almost a mile away from home.
"I think i'm going to piss myself." she announced to herself in alarm and decided to pick up the pace and crash through a broad puddle spanning the road. Damn the cobbler's warning about the patch, she would just pay for him to fix it up again.
Never ignore the curse of a wisened old cobbler, for you never know if you've actually chanced upon a leprechaun. The very moment that the top of Lizzy's boot sunk into the puddle she felt a tingle shoot all the way up her spine.
Her legs felt suddenly chilly. She looked down and her jeans were miraculously gone, although she was still standing in her blue boots.
Even more bizarre her underwear was gone, replaced by a huge thick crinkly diaper.
Lizzy wet herself. The shock was just to much, she simply couldn't hold it anymore. As she felt the warmth spreading around her crotch and bum she couldn't help but replay the cobbler's words in mind: "May the little lady go for her walk with no fear of wetting herself."
Well she certainly didn't need to hurry to a toilet anymore but she would have a humilating waddle home ahead of her in the soggy diaper. Next time she would try to be more patient.
