I hate booties. I hate wearing them. I hate that if they’re not just the absolute perfect size and fit they’re liable to slosh around, filling with cold water and doing horrible, horrible things to destroy the already delicate lack of coordination and feel that exists between my feet and the deck of my surfboard. Booties are my enemy. And my current boycott of them has almost reached a decade, so why give in now?
My disdain for those stupid rubber socks has created a stubborn standoff that may never end. Crawling down cliffs and getting out of the water at low tide when surfing some firing point break in the winter adds another 90 minutes and half a dozen tiny cuts and sores to every session. But at least I have my integrity. And since I live in Southern California I can get through every winter without caving in and still don’t run the risk of growing Mr. Deeds’ black foot.
Holiday trips home to Northern California aren’t such a breeze though. Try running up the point on Westcliff Drive in December on top of two stubs that have absolutely zero sensation left in them beside the stinging, biting cuts of rocks on frozen flesh. It’s like stubbing your toe over and over, if your entire foot were one giant pinky toe kicking a coffee table made of ice. If I lived in some place that didn’t skip the shitty seasons, however, all this might go out the window. I’ve heard places like that exist – where a 4/3 isn’t a “winter suit.” I’ve never surfed these places because, well, I’m clearly spoiled. So whenever I end those “cold water” sessions and finish the half hour project of slipping out of a 4/3 I cure all of this by spending a minimum of three hours (sorry drought) under a hot shower until the feeling in my feet comes back.
This little invention, called the Wave Warmer, was clearly made for surfers without such a trivial personal grudge. They’re reusable hand and foot warmers that slip inside your booties, keeping those toesies warm while you surf. You know, because that’s less painful than my method. The reusable part of the equation comes into play when you wrap them up and drop into hot water for about 10 minutes until the solution crystalizes again. And apparently there’s no cap on how many times you can repeat the process as long as you don’t break the packaging.
So touché, evil bootie industry.Touché.
