New Boot Day

Life is full of tiny, traumatic incidents. Each day we are met with hundreds of micro-decisions that demand little of our attention yet matter enough to require a few seconds of our time. New Boot Day is not one of these decisions.

I was going to the Harbor Freight in Alamogordo to pick up one of their welding carts that was on sale for $34. Or maybe was it a closeout? Inventory reduction? Anyway, I try not to leave the house in my bathrobe and slippers so I put on my day clothes and boots for the excursion. That’s when it hit me. My boots were looking pretty bad.

I’ve been wearing Rossi boots for about 8 years now. They are super comfortable right out of the box. Style-wise the Rossi boots are no great shakes but who wears boots for style? If the Rossi’s can be said to have a flaw that flaw is that they last forever. The damn things simply never wear out. Since they still work as boots you never know when to call them done.

Today though, the Rossi’s looked pretty tattered. The soles were still firmly attached and the uppers were all in one piece, it’s just that the overall boot looked like something you’d see worn by the unfortunate men in one of those grainy photos of a depression-era food line. I began to be self-conscious about my foot wear: will the clerk at Harbor Freight take a look at my beat up boots and decide to call security?

I’m hard on boots. My shuffling pace, the lazy-feet constantly tripping over rocks and thresholds and my need to crawl around on the ground to do the things I like to do all tend to shorten the life of boots qua Gresh. Popular, well-known brands of leather work-boots will last about 6 months on me.

Conversely, I hate to get rid of a pair of boots unless they are utterly destroyed. Part of it is my natural thriftiness and part of is my deep-seated feeling that I don’t really deserve a new pair of boots. What have I done to warrant new boots? There are many, many people who work much harder than me and these people do not get new boots…ever. I feel like such a fraud wearing new boots. Who do I think I’m fooling?

Then there’s the distress caused by having to witness my brand new boots get scuffed up. One time I had new boots on and the first day I tripped over a sharp piece of rebar, the rebar put a 1-inch long slice on the toe of my new boot. It nearly killed me. Not the trip: the slice. I find my movements inhibited with new boots on. I can’t do my thing and worry about the finish on my boots at the same time.

After much anxiety and teeth gnashing new boots become old boots and my world can settle down. Everything is in order, I can pull on my boots and go about my daily business, be it motorcycle riding or concrete placement, without a second thought. I’m free and loose with old boots.

But not today. Today I have on new boots and every step I take in them is a toxic cocktail of fear and self-loathing. I will step high, always watching for obstacles that could mar the beautiful ebony leather of my new boots. I will bend at the knees. I will stand soles down and I will wish I could leave my new boots safe in their shoebox forever.