Permanently Deleted

  • red_stapler [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

    Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

    But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

    This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

    • Oxbinder [any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Me mum treated me to a pair of work boots when I got my first full-time job, as a landscaper. I picked what were called "lineman's boots" because they looked cool as hell. I have no idea what they cost.
      I worked for years, and nailed the heel back on one after trying to kick a stump out of the ground with it. Then I moved on from landscaping, but wore them in my band because they were still cool as hell. Swam called them my "mentally challenged boy" boots, only he didn't say it that way. Still have them, still wear them when there's dirt to be moved. They'd be in a lot better shape if I'd bothered to polish them regularly, but yeah, this is a real thing.