A frequent complaint I see from people is that their riding boots (or sometimes even their rubber rain boots) aren't holding up as long as they'd expect "for what they cost". They then go on to talk about how they've been wearing those boots daily for four years and can't figure out why they are falling apart. My favorite is when they go on to say well, yeah, I clean stalls and bathe my horse in them, but they should hold up to that! Lol. This kills me. Dude, they're leather boots. If you're traipsing through poo and getting them soaking wet and full of soapy bubbles that you probably don't rinse off, of course they're going to break down and rot! And four years?! Any boots I wear every single day and do chores in die after a year. Doesn't matter how much I pay (or don't). Want to know why boots lasted longer in the old days? Because there were more repair shops around. People had their boots FIXED on the regular. It's harder these days to find boot repair shops. It's often easier to just replace the boots. I remember when I was growing up (which was apparently a really long time ago, though it doesn't so much feel that way to me) having my boots resoled and restitched pretty much yearly. And sometimes stretched to fit my growing calves. (My feet stopped growing in the fifth grade, and I don't think my legs grew much taller after that either, just wider.) And the boots didn't have as many moving parts either. They didn't have zippers. We pulled them on! And bruised our friends' asses trying to get them off at the end of the day too. Anyone remember that? Pulling off your friends' boots? Or are you all too young? It was certainly a spectacle. Anyway, that's my rant for today.
My other "deep" thought is really quite silly but occurred to me while my mind was wandering earlier. I find people in the UK use the word "post" in reference to sending something through the mail. And their mail service is called Royal Mail. But here in the US we say we are mailing an item. (Or shipping, we use that word a lot too.) But our mail service is called the US Postal Service. So shouldn't we be saying post, and our UK friends should be saying mail? Sorry. This is how my brain works. Anyone else ever noticed this?
