Boots

I looked at thousands of boots.

Several are similar. It took a lot of whittling down. Finally I found the perfect boot. One that will go with mostly jeans of any color, blue, green, orange, red or  white, or cargo pants, or dress pants. Around here you can get away with such things. Dressed in casual boots you can go to a play, even a ballet, an upscale restaurant, a wedding, a funeral, a bar mitzvah, a baptism, a quinceañera, anywhere for any event that you like and you will not be checked.

Is that hot, or what? I love the WWI Army boot aspect to it that I'm imagining. And I like that the white part of the sole is not too thick. Thousands of boots and it got down to this one. 

But not in my size. 

OMG! What a bummer!

The story of my life. I see the boot everywhere but not in my size. I look in places I don't usually go. Amazon told me they can notify me when they come in so I put up an alert. Months went by. Today Amazon said the boot is available. 

Guess what my size is. Come on, be a sport. Guess. You get three guesses and the first two don't count.

Son of a bitch!

Even the manufacturer doesn't have them in my size. Overstock has them but not in my size. Some dozen places I looked today have them but not in my size. 

What's up with that? How can all these places be out of one size?

Actually, I did find them. On eBay, and in my size. And for a super reasonable cost too. The best that I've seen. Almost too cheap, actually, that it seems suspicious. And new. But the fabric portion is the same color as the leather and they don't look as cool. 

See? 

Uncool.

I could buy them then re-dye the cloth portion however I like, but I don't feel like it. I'm bummed out they photograph differently. It makes a big difference. The eBay photograph put me off the idea. Now they're not so attractive. 

But they sure get rave reviews on Amazon. Zappos has the boot but not in this color. Odd, because Amazon owns Zappos. 

So I kept looking and kept dismissing all over again. There I am back at square 1. The eBay pair is still the best choice. I would buy the boots plus olive green dye. 

I had already dismissed other similar boots by the same manufacturer when I saw a photo uploaded to reviews. I like this look quite a lot. 

So I bought them. This user photograph made up my mind. I think these boots look great. 

This is irrelevant but I think it's funny. No male person I know cares about receiving complements for their shoes. I thought. Yet all the reviewers say, even the negative reviewers say, "I've been getting complements on these boots from day one."

For some reason that strikes me as funny. Because I complement women all the time on their clothing and their shoes. I'm specific in my complements and women like that. But not men. Women really appreciate having their shoe choices noticed. They put a lot of thought into shoes and often a lot of cash too. So you noticing that makes it worth it, incrementally. While men are more, eh, so what, they're just shoes. But tonight I've been corrected. Reviews on Amazon tell me dudes care about complements too. It reaffirms their choice. Saying so makes them sound uncertain.

Reviewers like the white rubber, but I do not. Maybe I can dye those to disguise them. At least tone them down. 

They also say the laces are too short. So that's another thing I'll have to remove them, measure them then order new ones that are longer.