Conceded: Or, Shoes Part Deux

These boots were made for walking... on my feet.

I bought these boots.

After wise words from a friend to the tune of:

1. How environmentally friendly can it be to have dozens of pairs of shoes shipped overnight to and from your house while you try to find the one non-fug pair of non-leather boots in existence?
2. How environmentally friendly can it be to buy a pair of thin plastic shoes (if that's all there is AND THAT *IS* ALL THERE IS!) and have them last one season (viz, the last pair of non-leather boots I bought for $50 that kept my feet freezing and fell apart after a year)?
3. Spend decent money on one pair of of leather boots and take care of them well and they will last many years.
4. You did your best. Now stop.

I researched the various environmental costs of leather vs plastic, and it seems leather still loses. And there is the ethical issues I still have with the dead things on my feet. I looked into which countries make the most environmentally destructive shoes, and have the most egregious animal treatment industries, so I could avoid them (guess what? CHINA WINS. Guess what else? CHINA MAKES ALL THE SHOES IN THE WORLD). I couldn't win there either. All I could do is buy a pair that uses vegetable tanning techniques instead of chemical tanning techniques. One win. And I sought a pair that had a sole that protected the upper leather at the sides, so it would last longer.

One win plus gorgeous, gorgeous boots.

Is it too much to ask that I be allowed access to some nice boots?

Not my boots.

World, bewares, first world problem of the highest order coming your way.

I can't find any good boots to buy. I think I want them knee-high, brown and flat. Maybe riding boot style? But I'd settle for scrunchy-down ones if they looked good. But none of them do look good. Because I am trying to not buy leather. I dunno, I just feel like leather is the wrong thing to do these days. I'm not eating meat. I'm not wearing leather. And there is NOTHING out there in not-leather that doesn't look like awful, cheap, plastic crap. I think people who make non-leather boots assume that one doesn't buy leather becuase one can't afford leather. So the shoes are poorly constructed and thin and designed for 12 year olds who've saved up their pocket money to splurge $50 at Aldo. FUG FUG FUG FUG FUG.

I have bought and returned EIGHT PAIRS OF BOOTS online in the last few days. I have had my heart broken over and over again. Especially when I learnt that the "vegetable leather" invovled in these boots doesn't mean "leather made from vegetables", it means "leather dyed with vegetable-dye". Fuck this shit.

What I'm making do with (oh, poor suffering me) is a pair of vintage cowboy boots from an op-shop in Old Town and a pair of three-year old quilted faux-fleece lined cheap, leaky, snowboots from Target. The cowboy boots are leather, but it doesn't count because they are 30 years old. So I'm not killing any new cows to get them.

Tell me, where are my boots? I HAVE MONEY LET ME SPEND IT.