Bootless

Once upon a time as I dutifully plowed my way through my college Shakespeare course, I stumbled upon the word “bootless.” What a magnificent word! I thought. It has been my favorite word since. I can’t remember what play or sonnet I was reading, but there are several from which to choose:

“I have seen a swan/With bootless labour swim against the tide.” Henry VI, Part III

“The robb’d that smiles steals something from the thief: He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.” Othello

“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes/I all alone beweep my outcast state,/And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries.”  Sonnett 29

Though it’s tempting to define “bootless” as the state of having lost or being without one’s boots, it actually means “useless, unprofitable” and comes from the Old English word “boot,” meaning “profit or use.” It is simply a marvelous word, and not only because one could use it to create a sentence like this:

A boot-less cowboy is a bootless cowboy.

In case the sentence above is not enough for you , and you want/need more proof of this word’s excellency, try yelling it

Mid-argument: BOOTLESS!!! IT IS BOOTLESS TO TRY TO TALK TO YOU RIGHT  NOW!

Or while defiantly shaking one’s fist at the skies: BOOTLESS!! 

Or while slumped against the side of one’s car in the rain, after thousands of attempts to change a flat tire: Booo-hoo-hoot-leee-heeess….

Let’s explore more usage possibilities with help from HOA World:

1. It is bootless to try to hide the fact that you are indeed harboring poultry in your back yard.

Clues to the existence of the poultry: 20-foot high net to contain the chickens; neighbors being awakened by the early morning cockadoodles; owner seen selling and/or giving away eggs. Homeowner receives a violation letter requesting he rid his property of his chickens. He calls the management company infuriated and asks “How do you know I have chickens?!” When asked in return if he, in fact, does, he starts spluttering “I’M NOT GOING TO DISCLOSE THAT INFORMATION! I DON’T HAVE TO TELL YOU ONE WAY OR THE OTHER! EVEN IF I DID HAVE CHICKENS – WHICH I’M NOT GOING TO DIVULGE – ETC. ETC. ETC.” (One can almost see the spittle spraying onto his receiver.) The homeowner then tries to direct the conversation away from chickens to the properties of “chicken cackle” and whether it can be confined within one’s property lines, and from there to tree trimming and finally to gun control.

As I said, ’tis bootless to lie about chickens. In this instance, anyway.

2. It is bootless to attempt to sound 30 when you have not passed puberty.

As we are in the throes of a horribly hot summer, I received three phone calls within 5 minutes from teenagers attempting to get pool passes out of me last week. I told the first two callers to have their parents (the homeowners) call and request the passes. The third caller said in an exaggeratedly low voice, “Hi, I’m calling to see about getting some pool passes for my kids.”

Me: Um, ok…are you the homeowner?

Kid: Yeah.

Me: And how old are you?

Kid: 30

Me: You don’t sound 30.

Kid: Well, ma’am, I don’t have to sound 30. (*Little hint here, Kid. If you really were 30, at this point you probably would have started cussing me out and threatening to call your attorney instead of calling me ma’am.)

Me: What’s your name?

Kid: QH.

Me: Well, QH, I don’t see your name on the deed to the house, so what I’ll need you to do is have your MOM call me.”

Kid: (long pause)…OK.

As you can see, ’twas a bootless attempt by these teenagers to pull the wool over my eyes.

3. And sometimes it is just bootless to try to understand people at all. Reference the below voice message I received at work last week:

“I’m calling about a bird’s nest that’s in the townhouse right next to me and somehow I guess the little bird flew down and it died on my porch. I wanted to see if you could get the bird’s nest taken out cuz I’ve um not feeling secure about the birds when you come out.”

Maybe this homeowner watched The Birds a few too many times as a child? Not sure.

Bootless.

Bring Macy’s Your Huddled Masses

Nothing like a trip to the mall to remind me why I rarely go there.

After being in Macy’s for all of about 2 minutes, I was hailed by a salesman with a flyer. He was so far away from me, however, that all I heard above the babble of that 3-story synthetic castle was the word “freakin’”. Freakin’? What was he trying to sell me?! I felt like running.

I recoiled into the racks of lime, mustard yellow and magenta safari-print dresses, making sure I wasn’t being followed. Hunting for anything modest and unassuming, anything I could wear to a wedding without looking like a gaudy plastic flower. Unbeknownst to me, this afternoon Macy’s was hosting Clinton Kelly and his show Make Over America. Clinton Kelly recently wrote a book titled Freakin’ Fabulous. Actually – FREAKIN’ FABULOUS. Apparently the salesman had tried to tell me earlier that I could take home a copy of the book with a $100 purchase.

As I stumbled dazedly through the displays, Clinton Kelly’s bright-red book confronted me. Unavoidable. He caught me. The subtitle offered to teach me “How to Dress, Speak, Behave, Eat, Drink, Entertain, Decorate and [as if this wasn't enough!] Generally Be Better Than Everyone Else.” Wow. Wow. Yet the promises of comprehensive elegance contrast sharply with the word “FREAKIN’”.

Clinton may be able to teach me how not to “look like hell” and thus increase my chances of being deemed “fabulous,” but I could teach him how not to write stupid and euphemistic book titles.

I’m sorry – I really don’t like the mall. I have nothing against fashion, but everything against our culture’s shallow and materialistic messages about “fabulousness.” Ironically the etymological roots of the word “fabulous” date to the 15th Century Latin word “fabuloso,” meaning “celebrated in fable.” Examples of fabulous things: griffin, pygmy, manticore, Jabberwock, Lilliput. These are also examples of unreal things.

I avoid the mall because, from end to end, I am hounded with the lie that I can attain an unreachable standard. I can achieve a photo-shopped look that is in fact nonexistent. I can realize some amorphous ideal called Fabulousness (for which, according to the FF Amazon.com product description, “the huddled masses yearn”) -

With a $100 purchase.