Giving the boot

"These boots were made for walking, and that's just what they'll do. One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you," she crooned in the radio, and you had to grin, imagining that blonde temptress in her tiny denim shorts, frayed suitably so that strands of blue fabric strayed over her smooth cream skin.

"And what about the boots?" Sid asks, smiling at me. He's amused at something.

What about them? I ask back, a bit irritated at the grin in his voice. Sid has a way of standing up and saying something that makes you think you're being silly. The really irritating part is that nine times out of ten, he's right.

"Well," he says, the infernal idiot, stretching up to his feet, yawning and crisscrossing his legs, long long long legs, and settling back into the lazy couch, hugging the pillow closer, but that silly smile of his remains the same, "The song is about the boots after all. So maybe, after all that beautiful theorizing about the blonde's denim shorts and creamy thighs, you could spare a thought about what the boots are like."

Appy titters. "Moron," she coughs aloud, and I'm inclined to agree. Nancy Sinatra had weightier topics on her mind when she was singing Boots, I'm sure, than boots themselves. Appy's inclined to agree, mind reader that she is, and says so: "I’m sure that Nancy Sinatra had weightier topics on her mind when she was singing Boots, than boots themselves!..." The problem is, I often suspect Appy of sarcasm, and she often happily admits to the crime. So that's why I look at her askance now, not very thrilled at her backing, as I would be perhaps, if Archie had said the same thing.

But Archie says: "You guys are nuts. That's Jessica Simpson singing that stupid song, for god's sake, and not Nancy. Was Nancy even blonde? She was brunette, na?"

Archie's the practical one. The one who peers at the world from behind shades of grey and black and white, not too many colours like me, who's perpetually on the run after rainbows... and boots now, I suppose. Archie's not very impressed with either Jessica Simpson or Nancy Sinatra.

The other two, however, have vested interests, and I can't trust either. Sid has a crush on Nick Whatshisname, Jessica Simpson's ex, and that's why he can’t stand thoughts about the blonde or her frayed denim jeans. And Appy swoons every time she hears Frank Sinatra sing The Way You Look Tonight. She's seen the last scene of You've Got Mail only a gadzillion times, the rose garden where Meg Ryan sees Tom Hanks come through with his dog, and that's when you have the score in the background, love wrinkling noses and foolish hearts being touched in lovely ways. And Appy never fails to sigh in heartfelt angst when she sees that scene. It's enough to make Archie go 'O pleeeeeezzze!' in a most pitiful way.

"All of you are complete philistines, I swear. What's important is the tone. The boots are secondary. That's why you don't have to think of them all the time, Sid. It's the woman you're supposed to be looking at." And in cue to my words, Appy throws another pillow towards Sid. But that's when I decide to take Appy the Sap head-on, and charge at her next: "And honestly, Jessica's version is much better than Nancy's. Nancy was hardly as sexy! I mean, have you guys seen the video? There's this hot chick in an old Western saloon, in these tiny shorts and high knee length boots, hitting guys and dancing on table tops. It's a complete male fantasy come true. It’s all about kink and sex. Nancy doesn’t even come close!"

Appy's sputtering now so much that she can't respond to that one, and that's when Archie pushes her glasses back higher up the bridge of her nose, and says in her Sigmund Freud voice: "So, you never told us that you have S&M fantasies. Do you like rough sex?"

Sid hoots in laughter and I get a pillow thrown at my face. I'm not very amused. Before I can retaliate, however, Archie drones on: "The video has Jessica dancing in the saloon, causing all the guys to hit each other - a brawl, in fact. And then, in the middle of it all, Jessica and her dancers are gyrating and touching each other erotically and all the men pipe down after they see that. That kind of stuff actually perpetuates several myths about male heterosexuality - most importantly, the fact that heterosexual men get turned on by seeing women touch each other and themselves. It's remarkable how grown men will fight to compete for the affections of a woman, but will immediately be 'good' and sit down to watch if the woman in question starts making out with other women in leather and boots. So basically, heterosexual men are in love with the entire S&M fantasy, however much they go blue in the face denying it."

Appy, mutters to herself: "I like S&M. I like kinky."

Part of me is listening to what Appy said, and feels happy cuz she's really hot and sexy, but the other part of me is distracted by Sid the Fag’s sudden outburst: "Straight men are morons! They run after chicks canoodling themselves and can't stand it if gay men do it! Double standards! EFFing double standards!"

Archie sighs in heartfelt approval and I want to tell them both to go fuck themselves. The fag who doesn't go two days without getting laid and the dowdy hag who's not got laid in years. Talk about strange bedfellows! I'm about to say something mean which I would probably regret later, but am saved when Appy croons almost to herself, "I hope Frank Sinatra wasn't gay. Do you think he was, Sid?"

Sid sighs happily, and chirps in, his Homosexual Pride abated for sometime, "I have no idea. Dapper dude, though. I wouldn't be surprised. It would be so cool, if all those mafia guys in 1920s America were gay!"

Archie sighs again, pained at the misrepresentation of the Capones and says, "You have your decades severely mixed up, Sid. I suggest you stick to lusting after Nick Whatshisname and leave Frank for the Sap Bowl there."

And that's when Sid sticks his tongue out to Archie and me, and quotes from a very unlikely source: "These boots were made for walking, and that's just what they'll do. One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you!"