Forget choice
Teach the children, early along, about the essential rule of stuff. Stuff breaks. Stuff breaks at inconvenient times. The replacement stuff will, by some law of commerce, be equipped with the weakest feature of the article. The broken feature.
Case in point; my winter boots. Perhaps it’s a fashion detail, but winter boots around here come with both zippers and laces. The laces never break, because the laces are never undone (after the first fitting). From that moment on, the user will unzip the boot to remove it. And the zipper will break in the winter time when snow is high and abundant.
My moment; this morning, when I needed to go out for milk and muffins. Forget repair, or jury rig. The boots are now useful only as something to trip over in the dark of night. And although I made haste to the bootery, the sad thing about retail cycles is that winter boots are already on their way out, to make room for whatever strikes the fancy of the commercial buyer for the next season. It doesn’t matter that we still have another three months of snow locally (global warming doesn’t mean that we get to go barefoot in January, or February, or (you get the drift).
I did find one pair in my size. With laces and zippers. And if I’m really lucky, I’ll tough out this year (and next?) Forget choice. I might as well live in some totalitarian paradise.
I could do like the youth of my world. Wear sneakers year round. Learn some new ways to curse the cold. But, I’m old school, so boots it shall be.
