Alas, Ankle Boots

I'm having some ankle boot cognitive dissonance. You see, quite a few years ago, when ankle boots made their first run at trendiness, I DESPISED them. I despised them so much that I made a serious and passionate personal vow that I would never, ever wear them. I promised myself that even if a Russian terrorist held a gun to my head and said "ankle boots or death?!" in scary Russian terrorist broken English, I would choose death. But now, well, i still don't know how to admit this, but... some badass black leather ankle boots with jeans or black tights....dude, it's hot. This transformation was first triggered by a pair I saw in InStyle like a month ago. These:



They looked so cute in the magazine that the $129 pricetag suddenly seemed insignificant and I slammed the magazine closed and rushed to the Aldo website to buy them right away. But alas, I was disillusioned; in the magazine they were amazing, but here, not so much. Doesn't it look like they're partially melted or something?

Maybe God melted them so I wouldn't break my anti-ankle boot vow. But why must the shoes always suffer?