The Shoes that Ended a Friendship: a True Sunday Shoe Story

Once upon a time, in a land of cacti and rattlesnakes, two friends disagreed about footwear terminology. The first said that styling determined what to call the boots in question, but the other insisted that the level of practicality was more important.

“They’re Steven Tyler cowboy boots!” one insisted, her mouth set with determination, “They’re not meant to be practical; they’re meant to be fabulous!”

“But real cowboys don’t wear metallic bronze boots with extended toes and two inch heels!” the other countered with a pout.

“I never said that real cowboys would wear them, hence the reference to Steven Tyler. They’re supposed to be parodies of reality, even though they have detailing that mimics the original!”

“But I live on a farm, my family are farmers, and I know lots of cowboys, and none of them would wear those boots! Therefore they’re not cowboy boots!”

“It’s not about who would wear them! It’s about the detailing in the boots themselves! See that tooling in the leather on the sides? And the shape of the heel? And the sole that extended just a touch farther than the boot top? And the loops of material at the top of the shaft? All of those features are present in real cowboy boots, and therefore I can totally call them cowboy boots, as long as I admit that they’re not practical by saying that they’re Steven Tyler cowboy boots! Stop arguing with me, you’re not going to win.”

But the argument didn’t end here. The practicality party refused to stop talking about real cowboys, until the other became sick of their childish stubbornness and told them to grow up and give it up.

It’s been 4 years, and not a word has been spoken between the two, even on a 2 hour plane ride from Kamloops to Calgary. The moral of this story is pretty obvious: it’s better not to argue with me about shoes, because you’re definitely wrong, and I will take this as a grievous insult.