Anyone who has every had an injury that required walking in a boot knows how difficult it can be. It may look easy, like walking in an oversized shoe, but it causes far more issues. I find myself wearing a boot much more than I would like to so I am all too familiar with the various different struggles that walking boots present.
1. Velcro
Boots are 98% velcro and 2% painful plastic pieces that you always bump your leg on. Velcro is all fun and games until your boot strap gets caught on your expensive running clothes or yoga pants or when you're constantly having to pull hair and fuzz off of each strap.
2. It's impossible to get anywhere quietly.
Boots are by no means soft and gentle. Forget trying to get anywhere quietly or trying not to make a scene. You can hear someone clunking along in their boot from all the way down a hallway. The worst is trying to go down a flight of stairs without being obnoxiously loud.
3. They make your hips hate you.
Boots make our hips get completely out of alignment, probably because of the boot swag that we have been walking with for so long. The boot is much higher off the ground than regular shoes so we develop a nice little limp to add to our already injured foot.
4. It takes forever to get ready.
What would usually take 15 seconds to put shoes on is now taking about 2 minutes. First you have to make sure that everything is where it should be inside of the boot and then you have to untangle all of the straps and de-shed them (as mentioned above), then finally you can begin strapping everything up. It's a process that takes far too long.
5. Your feet get restless.
Sometimes you just want to stretch your calves or ankles out, but that's impossible in a boot. Everything from the knee down is basically immobilized. This isn't usually too much of an issue until you've worn the boot all day and you really just want to stretch.
6. Warm weather is your enemy.
Trying to go outside and enjoy a nice summer day is a regrettable mistake. You seem to get twice as hot as everyone else and then you get to deal with a gross, sweaty, repulsive boot.
You don't realize how annoying boots are until you have to lug one around with you all day for multiple weeks. From ruining some of your favorite clothes, to being uncomfortable and inconvenient, boots are definitely a pain. They are leaps and bounds better than crutches (unless you have the fine privilege of having to use both), but they also definitely make us learn to appreciate the simplicity of shoes.