Boot saga

In the last year, I have destroyed four pairs of boots. This phenomenon is less operator error and more a function of buying cheap boots. Witness exhibit A, purchased in October and worn maybe once a week since then:



The next pair, admittedly purchased for $20 at Ross around the same time, survived three wearings before I came home from work one day and mistook them for the above pair and tried to slip them off instead of unzipping them. Then this happened:



Not pictured: my other two pairs of broken black boots. The newer of the two had heels that wore down so unevenly that I wobbled when I tried to walk in them. The first broken pair was purchased at Payless several years ago but worn sparingly. The cap broke off the heel midway through my workday, and I'm not the type to just have extra shoes lying around my office. By the time I made it home that day, those boots went straight into the trash.

With these four pairs of broken boots, I have reached a conclusion: stop buying cheap boots, for crying out loud. However, anyone who has tried to find black boots knows that every website has approximately 4,000 pairs to sift through, and 90% of them are ugly. The remaining 10% are either unbelievably expensive, or sold out in the needed size. With my last decent pair of boots experiencing an unwanted ventilation situation, and springtime nowhere in sight, I was getting desperate. Then I remembered the Doc Martens store that just moved in on Burnside St. I've had three pairs of Doc Martens in my life, two of which are still viable more than a decade later. Why didn't this occur to me sooner?

The story of me and my Docs is a long and entertaining one. In the mid-1990s, I was obsessed with grunge music. Kurt Cobain was my idol, and I desperately wanted a pair of Docs. However, hundred-dollar shoes are not exactly a practical purchase for a sixth grader. Nonetheless, after months of begging, I finally got my first pair of the coveted boots. Here I am on the first day of seventh grade, breaking them in. September in Palm Springs meant that the temperature was more than 100 degrees that day, but I have always been a believer in fashion over function.



I wore those boots through the end of middle school, when I finally outgrew them. That summer, though, my family took a trip to England. I knew that the world's first Doc Martens store had recently opened in London, and I pleaded with my parents to take me there. Not wanting to come along, my mom sent me to the store with just my dad. Big mistake. My dad isn't a shopper. Rather than try on shoes, he will hold the box up to the light and declare that they fit, throw the money on the counter, and leave. Now here he was with a fourteen-year-old girl in a four-story building that sold nothing but shoes. This was an important occasion for me, and as far as I was concerned, the whole reason we'd come to the U.K. I was taking my sweet time. My dad took a seat somewhere while I scrutinized every pair of women's shoes. I remember almost settling on a pair of lavender patent leather eight-holes before spying THE shoes. They were the most amazing boots I'd ever seen in my life, and they needed to go home with me. Happy I'd finally made a decision, my dad paid for the boots and we returned to our rented flat to show them to my mom. She'd ordered pizza while we were out, and was excited to see which pair of sensible black boots I'd chosen to complement my entire wardrobe. I gleefully pulled these shoes from their cardboard prison:



In case the ancient photo doesn't do them justice, you are looking at the world's only known pair of special-edition denim underneath, rainbow-splattered velvet on the outside, eight-hole Doc Martens. They are the coolest shoes in the history of ever, and I loved loved loved them. My mom, ever the practical one, was not amused. My dad and I were both in, as my mom liked to say, "deep and serious trouble." I think she didn't talk to us for a good half hour before lecturing my dad on not succumbing to the bizarre wishes of his teenage daughter, then lecturing me on not manipulating my shopping-hating father into buying such outrageous footwear for me. The joke's on her, of course. I still have those boots, and though they are slightly too small 14 years later, I still cram my feet into them from time to time.

By the time I was a senior in high school, the desire for a new pair of Docs returned. My brother had gone to England earlier that year, and I asked if he wouldn't mind picking up a fun and unique pair to serve as my Christmas present. After deciphering the clue that read "paradox in a box," I unearthed these:



I'm sure my mom made a face, but those boots are currently situated in my closet, right next to their multicolored cousins. It's been more than 10 years since I've had a new pair of Docs, though, and I was a little overwhelmed by the selection available to me. Finally, I set my sights on some sophisticated knee-high boots with a mid-heel and a side detail. I asked for my size, but these boots have been discontinued and only a few pairs were left in each color. Defeated, I tried on a different style. The leather was much too thick, the tops of the boots scraped the bottoms of my knees, and the size eights were much too small for comfort. I asked if they had the original boots in a nine. Sure enough, they had both the red and the black ones in that size. I asked to try them both. Hearing my mother's voice in my head, I tried to choose carefully. The stylish red ones or the practical black ones? The pair that would match nearly all of my clothes, or the pair that would stand out by matching almost nothing? Oh to hell with it. I'm a grownup and I'm sick of having cheap boots that don't last. Wrap 'em both up.



Let's face it. Momma raised a shoe queen. But you have to admit, they look pretty fabulous.



Personal note to my mom, my inner teenager told me to buy this pair instead. I told her to keep her hands off my credit card and go wait outside.