Column: Weary shopper encounters obstacles in search for new shoes

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, May 20, 2003

I recently bought a new pair of shoes. Apparently, a few things have changed since the last time I bought a pair. Well, actually only one thing: The stores now seem to discourage customers from actually trying the shoe on before purchasing it.

That might be because I didn’t by my new shoes from a shoe store, but instead from a discount retailer. There are advantages to this. As much as I encourage and root for good customer service, sometimes over-attentiveness can be a bit extreme. Some shoe store employees must be paid on commission, because it’s almost as if you can’t pay them to leave you alone. They’re like overly friendly puppies just embarking on a sales career.

At a discount retailer, it’s the opposite. Since the employees in these stores seem to for the most part ignore customers, you get to take your time and browse through the shoes until you find a pair you’d like. Which brings me to where I started &045; it seems like they discourage trying them on. They now band the shoes together inside the box with one of those plastic strings, the kind they put clothing tags on.

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Although that is not a new idea, the way they do it now is. They used to position the shoes together they way they would be worn and band them that way. I guess that made it too easy for people to steal them, though. Anybody so inclined could slip on a pair and try to inconspicuously shuffle out of the store in half-inch increments, cutting the band when they got home. Now, they place the shoes sole-to-sole, with the toes pointing in opposite directions. The shoes are also placed on the side of the box opposite of what foot they are intended for. I had to pull the shoes apart and break the band just to be able to try them on. Apparently, they are seriously attempting to deter theft of footwear.

On the other hand, they may simply be trying to keep the shoes from becoming separated. Imagine the frustration of sole-searching customers who find mismatched, wrong-sized shoes in every box they open. Instead of being deterrent bands around the shoes, they may actually be mischief-deterrent bands.

By the way, have you ever noticed just how long shoelaces are these days? In a time when in most cases we are getting less for our money, shoelace manufacturers are providing us with much more than we need. So much that even after tying them, your shoes look almost like a pair of lop-eared rabbits. It’s kind of frustrating, actually. I can’t walk half a block without stepping on and untying one of them.

One time, I thought I had found a remedy to this. With the shoe on my foot, I pulled up the laces so that they were tight and even. Little by little, I cut equal amounts off the ends and retied, until I got them to a length where they would not hang over my shoe and pose a tripping hazard. When I reached that length, I removed them from the shoe and measured them, so that in the future I would know what length of shoelace to buy in the event of breakage. It didn’t work. I’m not sure what unit of measure the lace manufacturers are printing on their packages, but it certainly isn’t inches.

Incidentally, I grew so tired of tying my shoes 70 times a day that last time I bought shoes, I went with a pair that had zippers instead of laces. They were ugly, but functional. Comfortable, too. They fit just tightly enough to stay on. The only problem was that, unlike with laces, you cannot replace zippers. Eventually the zippers didn’t stay up anymore. On a two-lap walk around the Blazing Star Trail, I had to re-zip them like five or six times.

I went back to laces with this pair. At least when laces break, I don’t have to throw the entire shoe away.

Dustin Petersen is an Albert Lea resident. His column appears Tuesdays.