Ugg Boots,

You’ll notice, Ugg Boots, that I did not use the word “dear” to begin this letter. I don’t want you to hold the mistaken assumption that I have anything but the greatest contempt for you. But I don’t believe that even conveys how utterly I hate you. I possess nothing but the sincerest enmity, the most profound disdain, the most resounding loathing for you. You inflict ruin on the feet and ankles of women everywhere, women gullible enough to believe that how they appear to other people is less important than that their little toesies are warm and cuddly. You are emblematic of the laziness that is ruining humanity. For every silly woman wearing you with tucked in sweatpants and a sweatshirt or North Face fleece (the gray and black one, you know the one I am talking about) I want to kick a defenseless puppy. I shed a tear for the future of the human race every time I see a pink pair attempting to navigate the filthy Manhattan snowbanks. I want to choke someone until I see the light drain out of their eyes every time I see a mother/daughter pair dressed similarly, wearing Uggs, and holding shopping bags.

You are the ruin of The United States of America.

As a Californian, I never experienced a real winter until I moved to the North East. The worst we had it, Ugg Boots, was 40 degree days, perhaps a frost over night. But it never snowed. Never sustained sub-freezing temperatures. Never had to worry that the wind chill was going to make it feel like temperatures below 0°F (-18°C). Yet people would flip their living shit about the “cold” and how “freezing” it was. And that’s when you came out, Ugg Boots, on the feet every silly, stupid college girl going to class in her pajamas. It would be 60°F (16°C) and girls would be out with fleeces and Uggs and I would want to stab them.

Even here in New York, you’ll start seeing your hideous visage as early as September once nature delicately hints that perhaps maybe it might just not be warm enough to wear flip flops anymore. Then I must endure you until May when the sweat on a person’s brow suggests that perhaps maybe it might just be too warm to continue wearing vile, wool-lined skin tubes your feet.

That segues nicely into another gripe of mine. Winter boots need not be ugly, shapeless masses of material slipped onto the foot. They can be stylish, too. They can accentuate a figure, the can add height, they can be designed. But you, horrid defiler, you are not. You make women—even women who might have lovely, slender ankles—appear as if they have wooden pylons for ankles. The only thing I find more unflattering than you, Ugg Boots, is track marks.

Look, I’ll admit something to you, something that pains me to no end. I once purchased a pair of you for an ex. I know, I know. The self-loathing will never cease. It was our first Christmas and she had moved to New York not long before. I got her a pair of the black ones and she wore them for years until it became painfully and slushily obvious that you were not up to the job of keeping her feet dry as well as warm against the New York winter.

In summation, you can go to hell along with wedges, sweatpants with words on the ass, Ed Hardy clothes, and Tap Out. A winter without you would be the most pleasant summer of my life.

Sincerely,

The Black Laser.