rain boots

it has come to my astute attention over the last couple of years that some members of the chapel hill community have deemed themselves above ridicule of social ineptitude and decided that wearing rain boots is a totally agreeable fashion statement. now, i know you're thinking to yourself, "why does it matter if they wear rain boots? they're just kids. right?" wrong. they are not "just kids." these are fully formed adult human beings who for an inane reason i can't wrap my head around walk around in rain boots, as if that's what's hot these days. let me clear something up. neither is wearing rain boots cute, nor is it socially acceptable among self-respecting adults. in fact, i would go so far as to say that above the age of 8, there is absolutely no reason to wear rain boots. i'm sure you could think of any number of arguments, such as fishermen wearing fishing boots. well they're fishermen. it's part of their fishing wardrobe, just as cops wear starched polyester blue shirts with shiny yellow badges. now it's not that i'm just saying this to be spiteful, but it's objectively infantile when 22 year olds walk around campus, while the sun is shining brightly, with knee high rubber boots and think that they're not committing a social misstep (tangent: some people would have used "faux-pas," the french word for misstep, but i for one am not a fan of inserting random, or not so random, foreign words into an english sentence).

case in point. a couple weeks ago, it rained early in the morning, but the forecast was sunny for the majority of the day. no reason to wear rain boots for an hour or two when the sun's going to be brilliant for the rest of the day. right? wellll, while i'm out and about, on campus of course, what do i see but a socially self-righteous member of the "i'm going to wear rain boots even though i'm a grown woman" club. it was clearly not raining, and the sun was ostensibly shining. so, in order to oblige her need to wear those rain boots, i summarily bumped into her and knocked her into a mud puddle. she had the nerve to give me an indignant look when i was obviously doing her a favor, because hey, she had to use those rubber boots for something.