AI answered from my pocket while I shopped for boots

I'm not really a boots-with-the-fur kind of guy. But I do like boots. Nice boots. Something a little different, a little fancy, something that creates a particular look when that's what I'm going for.

And men's boots, in general, are very boring. I'm not going to be wearing just a pair of black work boots with my gray slacks.

So, something you may already know about me is that I don't strictly adhere to the way people think men should dress. I pretty much just choose what I like and wear it. If it completes the ensemble, it completes the ensemble.

Now, I do generally gravitate toward men's clothing. That's what I wear more often than anything else. But occasionally something else just looks better with the outfit. And boots are a particularly good example.

Especially in the fall and winter, when it's colder, my feet get cold, it rains, and tennis shoes just aren't appropriate anymore. I want boots that look good. And I'm particular about what that looks like. I don't just take any of them.

So I have a tendency to look at Goodwill and other stores like that for inexpensive boots I might like.

And on this particular trip, I was having a really good shopping day.

You know how sometimes you go to a thrift store and you can't find anything you want? And then other times they have everything and you're having a hard time narrowing it down?

This was one of those good days. I'd gotten several blazers, several shirts, and then I did what I always do. I went down the shoe aisle. I wanted to see what they had that I might like in decent shape.

And there were two pairs of boots that I really, really, really liked.

Now, because I mostly wear men's clothing, those are the sizes I have in my head. I forget what the women's sizes are, so I have to do the translation.

And in that crowded thrift-store setting, trying things on wasn't as easy as it would be somewhere with more room for it. Even though I'm only paying six dollars for these boots, I'd still prefer to have a pretty good idea they're going to fit.

But I've got an armload of stuff.

Sure, I could've Googled it. The information wasn't hard to find.

But that would've meant stopping, finding somewhere to put everything down, pulling out my phone, finding a size chart, zooming in enough that I could actually read the thing, figuring out where I was on it, then gathering everything back up again.

Not impossible. Just a whole interruption.

Instead, I opened the app and asked Eric to remind me how to convert my men's nine and a half into a women's boot size.

The answer came back through my phone, still in my back pocket. About a women's ten and a half to eleven, for the men's nine to nine and a half I'd asked about.

That was what I needed.

I didn't have to stop shopping and turn a thirty-second question into a whole little project. I asked it, heard the answer, and kept moving.

I grabbed my boots, put them in the cart, checked out, and brought them home.

I've worn them a couple of times now. They look amazing, and I've gotten all kinds of comments on them.

The AI part was a size conversion. Very, very mundane.

But that's kind of the point. I wasn't using AI to do something extraordinary. I was using it to get the information I needed without breaking everything else I was already doing.

And I have not regretted those boots.