Boots Cost A Million Dollars
They all cost one million dollars.
Who are you people with boots? I’m confused. Are you venture capitalists (whatever those are)? Are you descended from railroad barons? I don’t understand how you have good boots, because boots cost a million dollars.
Here’s how I came to this conclusion: I started shopping for a new pair of boots. I am going on a fun vacation with my sister to the United Kingdom next week, which is super cool. I saved for a while and booked months in advance on cheap carriers and got incredible deals. And I prepared! Being that I expect the UK to be cold in November, for the last week I have been stocking up on some winter essentials I was missing. Thermals, a jacket, a hat, some new gloves! All of these came willingly to me at a great price with just a little extra effort on my part. Ah, the wonders of preparedness and a thimblefull of elbow-grease.
This led me to assume that I would be able to afford new boots.
I was not able to do this, of course, because new boots cost an amount that I have already revealed to be one million dollars.
It seems unfair. I scrimped, saved, waited and worked. I got everything else in order in good time.
But boots are invariably, inflexibly a million dollars.
No amount of budgeting has prepared me for what happened this afternoon. I walked in Cole Haan, basically knowing that I was about to be humiliated as soon as I entered, on account of how nice-yet-on-edge everyone seemed when I first walked in. On a table in the back third of the store I found a cute-but-functional pair of waterproof walking boots, checked the tag, saw no price, turned the left shoe over, and saw a sticker announcing that the boots cost what all boots cost, which is one million dollars.
I nearly fainted. But then I remembered myself, and where I was, so I put the boot down, and then picked up another boot from another pair. I saw that those boots were also a million dollars. To calm myself, I crossed to another rack and flipped over some stilettos, which were thankfully only $250, god bless them.
But even as I inspected sixty-dollar sandals, and the patter of my heart slowed tempo, I knew it was too late.
In a last-minute attempt to save face, I touched some scarves, but my shock had been registered by all the other people in the store who would never need to do such a thing as flip a shoe over. They could smell me — the sales associates, the fellow customers, they edged away. I did not belong in their midst. I left with the sideways scurry of a crab, not once breaking eye contact with a pair of men’s loafers until I was well and truly out the door.
Wondering if that was just a Cole Haan thing, I stopped by a few other stores, ones with varying pricepoints. To my escalating frustration, I found that every pair of boots I encountered was, you guessed it, one million dollars.
I collected myself. I went home and sat down at the computer and went online to Shop The Deals.
And you’ll likely guess what I found next:
It destroyed me.
I don’t know why I am surprised. I own a pair of boots, and THOSE cost me one million dollars, or whatever that was in last-year-money, adjusted for inflation. They wore well, and wear well still, but it set me back a dollar-amount to the tune of one-million dollars.
I guess I never learned.
There remains no choice now but to spend another mill, which I never planned on spending, but I am a fool for forgetting to budget it in. Maybe that’s how all you with boots can spend one million dollars on boots: you budget! I don’t know, I guess that’s what I need to start doing.
There might be some of you out there who will contact me with your differing experiences. “But Kelly,” you’ll say. “I bought a pair of waterproof Tevas online and they were actually only 79.99 plus shipping.”
To that I say, review your bank statement — you are wrong — the boots cost one million dollars.
They cost a million dollars. They cost LITERALLY one million dollars. Just like all boots do.
Look it up! I am not wrong.
