Fixing the retarded L.L. Bean duckboot

My old duckboots fell apart. The previous return policy applied to them. I mailed them back to the Canadian-returns address for a replacement. I included a letter pointing out that I didn’t want a lecture. Much later, I was instructed by E‑mail to call a certain number, at which point an old lady, audibly wizened at having to say no to people all day every day, lectured me that L.L. Bean does not have anything resembling a lifetime guarantee.

As L.L. Bean does, she kept using the word “resoling” and kept trying to upsell me on that service, which costs 35 bucks and takes forever. Resoling would apparently have repaired my boots, which you’d think would be the very first thing she’d have told me. I had already shelled out the money for a new pair of duckboots. L.L. Bean was already up on the transaction, all told.

At no point, even after I asked her to do so, did the old lady offer to waive the $35 fee for resoling. To say the same thing once more, yes, I got a lecture.

Barely anything sold by L.L. Bean (“Freeport, ME”) is made in Maine – perhaps but two product lines, boots and bags.

I have been wearing the L.L. Bean duckboot (né Bean Boot), indeed made in Maine, for 20-odd years.