My Fetish is Mid-Calf Length Brown Socks
How my 14-year-old heart’s desire turned into a lifelong obsession
The summer I turned 14, I might have perished of under-stimulation if not for the thing that happened every weekday at approximately 2:32 pm: the arrival of the UPS delivery man.
It was 1995. I’d been left to manage a cramped, manure-scented animal feed store that no one had dusted since 1985. My dad is a country veterinarian, and his afternoon help had just quit. In exchange for running his store, he gave me $5 a day and orthodontics. I thought it was a bargain.
Business wasn’t exactly booming in our rural Illinois town of 200 residents. The farmers who stopped in once a week to load up their pickup trucks weren’t pining for conversation with Doc’s pigtailed daughter. I spent those long afternoons memorizing cattle breeds and where they originated, because there was a fly-spattered poster with curling edges above the desk.
Until 2:32 pm. At the mere sound of the UPS truck’s cutting brakes, I developed a sweat response and a frantic need for something important to appear to be doing. Natalie Umbruglia’s “Torn” played constantly on the radio that summer, providing background music for UPS Guy’s slow-motion approach.
