Taken to the cleaners?

A few weeks ago I decided I needed new sneakers for work. I wear them out pretty fast at work, as I'm on my feet for at least 8 hours a day and I am almost always moving. I know when I have to get new ones when it's raining and my feet get wet on the short walk from the car to the door. It usually takes me awhile to get them, as I don't really like going anywhere right after work (not to mention take off my shoes in public after work, despite the foot powder that I use), and I can't go anywhere after dinner but bed.

Sarah was off on a Wednesday, which is also my day off, so we ran some errands together. We went to a nearby town where the town center is being revitalized and many of the independent stores have been there for quite awhile. There is a 60 year old shoe store there, and I always thought it was a women's shoe store by the name (which I won't mention, but I'm not sure why). Sarah said it was for men and women, so we went inside.

The first thing I noticed was that is was like walking into the shoe store I used to go to when I was little. It smelled the same, it looked the same, and there were Stride Rite signs everywhere (the store I went to when I was little was Stride Rite in the old Menlo Park Mall, I had to get special shoes made because my left leg is shorter than the right). The proprietor had been sitting and talking with two other older gents, and he jumped up when we came in and asked us how he could help us. I said I needed new sneakers for work, and he asked me what I did. I told him I was a baker, and he said he had just the shoe for me, because he sold the same shoe to a lot of chefs in Rehoboth (a beach town in DE with scads of restaurants). He then told me to follow him so he could measure my foot.

This floored me, to tell the truth. I had not had my foot measured since I was 12 or so. Once I started buying my own shoes, I just bought shoes I liked in whatever size I was (I have gone from 10 1/2 in my late teens to 12 now). Some shoe stores do still have those foot measuring things lying around, but I never used them. I prefer the floor mat version, which I noticed recently that Target has. So I sat down and he pulled up that little stool thing with the foot ramp on the front and proceeded to take off my shoe (he asked first, but it didn't make it any less uncomfortable). After he found out I was a 12, he went back and got a pair of size 12 Converse (not Chucks, I wore those for a log time and my feet are probably suffering for it now), and he put them on. I got up and walked in them, and I was surprised at how comfortable and springy they were. I couldn't believe the guy nailed it on the first try, so I have to give him credit for knowing his product. I figured since they were Converse sneakers they would be no more than 60 bucks, but I never asked. I just took them up to the counter and he mentioned that I never asked, but I said that was fine, they were comfortable and most likely worth the money. He said the price wasn't too bad (his words exactly), they would be 90 dollars.

90 dollars! I have never, ever paid that much for a pair of shoes before. I bristled inwardly, but thinking about the comfort and fit, and the guy being the owner of an independent shoe store, I paid the 90 dollars. I did have some buyers remorse, but only for the price. When I wore them to work I was extremely happy with them, and he did say they were easy to clean, which I need to start doing, because they get gross pretty fast.

After a few days I started thinking that I should get a spare pair of the same Converse, because every time I found a good pair of work sneakers, I would look up the same model when I needed a new pair, and they would always be discontinued (mainly New Balance sneakers). So I typed the pertinent info into Google and found out the actual retail price. Across the board, they were no higher than 45 dollars.

I was pissed! I paid twice as much as I should have, and I was going to leave a nasty review on yelp.com. Luckily, I didn't do it right away and I had some time to think about it. I probably would not have found these sneakers if it wasn't for this guy, so there's that. I wondered if the price would have been lower if I had asked what it was at any time during the fitting, which was really a stupid move on my part. I don't know if that's how much he actually marks these sneakers up, or if he was having a bad sales day and saw an opportunity to make a few extra bucks. Whatever it was, I won't leave a nasty review, but I also won't go back there to get another pair. If they were 60 dollars, I would have been fine with it. But a 100 % markup of the MSRP is just too much. The service was great, and the guy was effusive in his thanks, but I don't know if I could ever go back there. I realize that he has to make a living, but I do too. I'm chalking it up as a learning experience.