An open letter to the gnome in the computer selecting my ads

Dearest Gnome,

You have correctly figured out that I'm in the market for some brown leather hiking boots with red laces. Alpine or traditional hiking boots, they're called. What you may not know is that these are to replace a pair I got at 14, and that I'd worn out by maybe 17. I've been looking since then, on and off, and yes, I tried the place where the initial ones came from. (Roots, the Canadian store.) I've found almost the right ones in a variety of places, allowing for the likely necessity of buying the red laces separately. (I'll confess to being swayed, though, by photos of the right boots with the laces already included.)

I have talked about this quest at dinner parties. (I'm sure that if you're reading this and had been thinking of inviting me to one of your gnome dinner parties, you're now second-guessing that.) I have looked for the boots online, obviously, which is how you, Gnome, learned about this. I really, really want these boots, but they're never quite right. Or they're close enough, but far too expensive. Or they're perfect, but only in men's sizes. Or they're on eBay for a reasonable price, but non-returnable. $100 for boots that fit is acceptable. But what are the chances they would, really? And these $50 pairs from the 1970s on Etsy - are any shoes that durable, to make it from someone's "Bob Newhart Show"-era closet to the 2014 woods? I want fashion and function. I want the theoretical option of hiking, or at least comfortably walking on trails.

So you see, Gnome, that while your ads may inspire me to return to the various pages - Sierra this, Amazon that - with the most promise, I've spent approximately half my life trying to track down the Platonic ideal of these boots, and so far, no luck.