Some editorial on the topic.

THE HOCUS-POCUS OF BOOT BUYING

On Monday morning, from the office, phone all your relatives and particu­larly also your boyfriend and ask all what type of ski boots they own.  Get the clinical history of each boot model.  Don't be surprised to find that ski­bum, tour-instructor, relatives and boyfriend all swear by different boots.  It is a sign of individuality.  Consult your mother as an arbitrator.  She has the incalculable advantage of being objective, never having had one of those things on her feet.  If your mother cannot be reached, read off to yourself the names of ski boots you got over the phone.  Pick the sexiest-sounding one and don't argue with yourself.  If none of the boot names has any sex­appeal, your boyfriend may have enough to make your choice easier. Drag him, through some ruse, to the nearest store having a bargain ski boot sale at the height of the winter season.  This is your guarantee for great values at low cost

There is a simple way of telling if a ski boot salesman has sufficient expe­rience in fitting you.  If he asks you for your regular shoe size and then produces a ski boot on which the same size is written and tells you, before you have it on your foot, that this is the ski boot for you, he is your man.  Place all your trust in him.  Unless your boyfriend has ideas of his own.  In that case, don't get alarmed if he announces to the salesman that he'll take over himself.  Relax and enjoy it.  He will put the boot on your foot and ask you to stand up before it is laced, to test if your toes crush up against the front of the boot.  Since this will happen with any boot roughly your size that is not laced up, the answer is to make the boot longer and longer until this trouble is eliminated.  Twenty minutes later and three sizes longer, the boot has been laced up by your confidant who now descends to the floor in a deep knee bend, grabs your heel and commands you to propel yourself straight up to the ceiling.  If this embarrasses you, don't let hint know it.  Do as he says and console yourself with the knowledge that you'll never be called upon to repeat this exercise on skis.  It can't be done on skis.  It is merely a test in the store, designed to stamp your boyfriend as all indisput­able expert able to determine if your heel will part company from your ski boot sole as much as a hair's breadth.  It will, and when that happens, start from scratch no matter how well the boot fits otherwise and even if the store has meanwhile closed for the night. 

Experience shows that ski boots are usually sold by either a calculated or self-inflicted method of exhaustion.  Statistically speaking, after having tried the eleventh pair of boots, a customer is sufficiently softened up, his feet so numb and his power of decision so shaky, that he'll buy just to get back into his street shoes.  That is the thoughtful way in which nature prevents ski boot salesmen and customers and their loyal advisors from having a nervous break­down.  We almost had one at the end of last winter and wrote about it in an article appearing in this October issue of Ski Magazine, entitled "The Quest for the Perfect Ski Boot." It brought us back into mental equilibrium, and a reading of it may conceivably do the same for you.

The above was groomed from "The Norse House Guide 1957-58"