Every day you want to be Monday morning

Even my youngest son knows about Monday mornings. When he wakes up he always complains about something:

One Monday it's his leg, another it's his head, another it's his tummy ....

He always has an excuse for that moment.

The thing is that one Monday early in the morning I came across a lot of situations where people were complaining.

And this also has to do with the feet.

As soon as I go out from the flat, walking in front of the commuter train, a young woman with a 3 year old girl got into a confrontation with the security guard.

'Again on strike? To hell with this!
I don't know what you want, more money?
But to work less!'

'Hey, I'm here working, I'm not on strike,' replies the security guard.

The woman looks for her mobile phone in her handbag and as she takes it out she continues to curse.

I keep walking, heading towards the terrace where I'm having coffee.

A few minutes later I pass the tax office building.

At the door several people complain to the security guard.

All I can hear is: 'No appointment, no service'.

And then, across the street, the parrots in the palm trees also seemed to be "complaining". They were making so much noise, it covered up what was being talked about below.

Two notes:

First, Tax Authorities and indignation go together. So in this case people's anger was surely justified.

And second, a line from the film 'Meet Joe Black' that stuck with me:

'There are two inexorable things in this life: death and the Tax Authorities'.

I'm terrible at remembering quotes and when I remember I always mix up words.

Maybe I remember this one because when I was a teenager my father always complained about the Tax Authorities and I didn't know why.

Today I have no doubts.

If 'them' has its eye on you, you're as good as dead.

With these thoughts I arrived at the terrace where I drink coffee.

At the next table, a woman in her 50s, her little dog and an older man were having breakfast.

The woman kept complaining about how bad the world is.

The man listened.

'Have you seen the fire in Galicia?
Sons of bitches, that was arson.
If I can't watch the news, I get so angry'.

The woman is absolutely right, you only have to watch the news to get pissed off.

On the way home, I change my route and at the bus stop I see a man taking off his hiking boots.

He is elderly, with white hair and a white beard.

I look at him, he looks at me and I look down at his foot. A little quickly, so as not to intimidate him.

His foot is bruised, with a big hardness on the little toe and a black toenail.

It looks more like a wood carving than a foot. As if it were the foot of a Christ.

The boot is on the ground and it has handmade cut-outs. In the area of the little toe a square of about 2 centimetres and in the toe a smaller one.

The boot was the typical mountain boot: heavy, robust and rigid.

In there, the feet don't feel, they don't move and the toes stick together.

They cease to be feet and become hooves.

The day goes on with protests, I say to myself. And of course, now it's the feet.

This man has been clever. In the places where it bothered him, he has used scissors.

Although there are some boots that don't need to be cut.

It's a pity they're not so easy to find.

These boots, as well as being wide, are very flexible so that your ankle can turn.

And their sole has just the right amount of protection so that you can move nimbly over rocks:

The Vivobarefoot Traker FG

Although some customers have complained about them, most of them are delighted.

As they flex a lot in the toe area, sometimes a few millimetres of the leather comes off the edge of the sole.

But that's as far as it goes.

It is something aesthetic, it does not affect the performance of the boot, nor its total impermeability.

If this bothers you, don't buy them.

In that case, I recommend these:

The Tracker Forest Esc

They have a thicker sole, are almost waterproof and have the edge of the sole stitched. So zero problems.

So much for the day of complaints.


PS: If next Monday you go to work with a shoe that respects your feet, you'll want every day to be Monday morning.