My bootstraps broke when I pulled them harder.
Turns out the local company that made bootstraps for 125 years was bought out by a hedge fund, which promptly fired all of the workers and subcontracted manufacturing to a company in Sri Lanka who could make them much cheaper by using inferior materials and by paying the Sri Lankan workers in 6 months what a fired local worker made in a day.
Ironically, the hedge fund CEO with the MBA he received as a legacy admission to Cornell only wears slippers because fuck you, I'm the boss.