I get my Doc Martens polished once a month in downtown Minneapolis. The person who shines them is really nice, and I plan on visiting her monthly until The End Times.
I have had these Docs for several years now. I remember ordering them through an e-mail sent by American Express for, I think, one of its partners or affiliates. I had thought about ordering them for a long time, and once I did, I kept them in the box for ... I want to say, no joke, up to two years. I wanted them, but I didn't need to use them right away, not when I had other shoes that I hadn't used up yet. But it was nice to know my shoes-in-waiting were already ready for me to break them out when the time came.
There was a noticeable breaking-in period, its manifestation coming in the form of the right shoe rubbing up against my right pinky toe so bad that the only way I could prevent that toe from being permanently bruised was to let its toenail grow and grow to the point where it's now a ... well, the only way I can describe it is a "growth." Maybe that wasn't necessary, and that I just needed to wear my boots enough times to where it would form around my feet. But that pinky toenail is so big and gangly now that I might need either professional help or a sander to properly cut my toe to its proper length -- and width.
Beyond that, I felt like a man wearing them. The steel toes made me feel protected, like I could kick ass and defend myself if I needed to (even though I read in a couple chatrooms a couple nights ago that the best footwear to wear for self-defense is sneakers, so you'll be faster when you run away). My Father kept insisting that these shoes were too heavy to be comfortable, and he had been buying for me a bunch of other shoes to wear instead. I wear them -- sometimes. But I always go back to my Doc's.
However, I might have to retire and part with them soon. Another thing I locked about those shoes were their durability. I have worn them for -- shoot, if I recollect correctly about how long I stored them, it's only been 4 1/2 years, which actually doesn't seem to be a long time. Anyway, I noticed that there was a crack that went all the way through the bottom, or the outsole, of the left foot. I also noticed that, especially during the winter, there would sometimes be some white frost that would collect on a part of my left shoe. My shoeshiner said was salt from the chemicals treated the snow, and she would use rosewater and/or vinegar to get it out, and it would be gone, at least for a while.
That did not happen last month, the last time I got my Doc Marten steel-toed boots shined. My shiner did an excellent job. But at night, well after I got home, I went downstairs and on my way down I looked at my boots and saw that this white frost, isolated to one part of my left shoe in the past, had now spread to pretty much my whole shoe. This, well, metastasizing cancer wowed me in time as well as in scope; before it took at least a day before the salt began to re-infect that shoe, and now it was mere hours.
I took a closer look at the bottom of that shoe. That crack stretched all the way from one side of the foot to the other, so it looks like that shoe was being cut like a cake. One day at work I took off that shoe my insole to combat flat feet. The top of the insole was wet, but even though I suspected it, the crack I saw on the bottom did not cleave through into the top. Still, the wetness is an indication that something is getting in there; I have noticed that my left sock is more damp than my right one. I don't immediately feel moisture when, for example, I walk on snow. But air and moisture are getting up in there, and that makes me believe that that infiltration is spreading salt, first to one part and then the entirety of the shoe. Well, either it's that or the crack from the outsole has ripped apart the insides of the whole shoe, and that white frost is an indication that the outside of the shoe is so disconnected from the rest of the shoe that it just gets cold with no warmth from my foot reaching it.
Whatever the machination, I think these boots are on their last legs. I don't think my left shoe is going to immediately fall apart while I'm walking. But it's high time I buy another pair of Docs -- I thought about getting Red Wings, but I still have black shoelaces and black shoe polish that are both meant for Doc Martens -- and stash it in case that left shoe becomes impossible to keep wearing.
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