Boot Queue

When I first got into bootblacking I was blacking boots daily.  But, at that point we had a huge line-up of boots that had never had a coat of polish on them and I was excited to get to each one.  My wrists are crummy though, so I wasn’t able to keep that up.  Even if I was, boots really don’t require maintenance every single day, and it takes time to properly polish a boot anyway and I don’t have time to black boots every single day.

Master Pravus told me he wanted me to black his boots once per week, and I was gung-ho about it at first.  Every Sunday I would sit down with the pile of boots and get to blacking them.  With crummy hands and wrists though, I think I only managed to keep that up for a couple of months.  Then, we started to not even be home on Sundays for enough time for me to maintain two or three pairs (usually) of boots and shoes.

So, we came up with this new method.  The “Boot Queue!”

There’s a little spot of wall behind the kitchen table where Master Pravus and me line our boots up once per week.  Those boots can be moved around depending on which are more important (e.g.  I need these for work tomorrow!) and which ones can wait (e.g.  It’s going to rain tomorrow so I won’t be wearing these anyway).  This has been a pretty decent way to do things because if I only have a little bit of time (or really shitty wrists that day) I can just do one boot and leave it next to its brother until I get around to the other one.  And, if Master Pravus wants to do bootblacking with me, then he can grab a pair out of the queue to put on before I start working.

I haven’t gotten the queue completely empty yet, because there always seems to be that one last pair, but I am keeping up pretty well.  =^^=