When to buy new gear

I know I've spoken about it before; the continued use of old gear. It's something that happens on a regular basis at every resort. Working as a greater some mornings I'm more amazed at the amount of old gear people come carrying up than anything else. Two weekends ago I was able to witness a couple carrying vintage Raichle Ski Boots in perfect condition. The bottoms looked like they'd seen very little wear, the sides still showed the original paints and what not. It was enough for me to stop them and ask how long they'd had the boots. Sadly the couple couldn't remember, but they loved the boots. As I was preparing for lessons that day in the Kids School, one of the employees from the sales area came walking back. Not terribly unusual but what was in her hand was. She was carrying the cuff to a ski boot. Apparently a family brought their child in for some ski lessons, bringing with them their borrowed gear from a family friend. Their child, once in the ski boot began to walk around, breaking the boot within a few seconds. It took less than a minute for the entire boot to disintegrate in the pay line. By entire boot I mean the plastic, the boot liner, and the buckles. All three were destroyed. The front desk employee brought the boot cuff back to give us warning that "Conan The Barbarian, Slayer of Boots" was about to be signed up for lessons, and left the boot cuff for us to inspect. We all joked about it for awhile, and the general decision had been that whoever gets this child needs an extra cut in their paycheck this week. Then the decision was the boot cuff should be mounted and shown why using old gear isn't the best idea. Ten minutes later I discover that "Conan" is one of the three children in my class. He was actually a fun student. After the class, I arrived at my locker to discover the Kids School had found some polished wood, drilled/mounted the boot cuff, and then hung it outside my locker with a name tag. The makeshift plaque now is going to be used to highlight the instructor who has had the most interesting pre-class story. So far I'm in the lead for 2011/2012.