So that is the environment in which I decided to buy sandals. And I had it in my brain that I was going to buy a particular brand of sandal: Chacos. That was the brand recommended to me by ... well, I do not think it was the last podiatrist I have seen, but the one before him, and that would have been close to a decade ago. But he suggested it, and he's an expert, and when I started to do my own research on the Internet, I found that a lot of people with flat feet liked wearing Chacos. Now, I still had it in my head that there was a lot of intense work done to craft footwear to the specific needs of a person with flat feet; I actually thought that some Chacos representative would measure all the parts of your feet, ask for your aesthetic preferences, and tell you that it'd be, like, three months before they come back with sandals they made just for you. Apparently that's not how it's done. If you have flat feet, there are ... sandals you can buy. Maybe I don't get it.
Anyway, even though I had "Chacos" rattling around my head for years, the decision to actually buy them ramped up in the past week or so. I combed through the World Wide Web to see if there was a particular brand of Chacos people with flat feet get: No dice. I also was looking for a sandal that I could not only walk around in, but take a hike in. The best Chacos for those were ... um, all of them. OK, so I guess I should buy the cheapest one, right?
Not so fast. This is footwear, so people on the Internet did recommend that I go to a store and try them on. Which makes sense, but it's something I haven't done in a while, and I bet a lot of people don't do that anymore. Because we all friggin' buy things on Amazon now, we don't look at them in person at a, say, Best Buy to see if it fits us or if it would look good in our kitchen or wherever. It doesn't seem to matter to us when the convenience of buying -- let alone the probable lowest price -- makes buying on Amazon a no-brainer. Also, those who do make it out to a store maybe are "showrooming," where they do seek to see what the product physically looks like to make sure it is right for them, then buy that item online because it's cheaper to buy it online.
"Showrooming" is the smart thing to do, but not the ethical thing to do, so when I went out to a shoe store yesterday afternoon, I did so with the intention of buying a pair of sandals. And I went, and for a Friday afternoon in the death throes of a pandemic, I guess I was surprised by how busy it was. I looked at the Chacos, uh, wall of sandals, kind of hoping some shoe salesman would come up to me and ask if I could use any help. But they were all busy helping other people. And my shoe shiner was going to leave a half-hour earlier than she usually does, so I decided to split; I planned on going today, this afternoon, to another shoe place, where I would have time to try on sandals to find the best pair for me.
However ... when I was working the test scoring project from home last night while going through my e-mails (I shouldn't do that; my bad), bleepin' Amazon sent me an e-mail for a pair of Chacos at a steep, steep discount. Damn you, algorithmic, tailored marketing!!! And like a damn whore, I bought a pair -- online without ever putting that brand of sandals on my feet, ever. They were $30-5 cheaper than they were at the store; I couldn't resist. And I have a ... uh, insignificant amount of guilt for buying them without properly vetting them. And it is an insignificant amount because I think about the opposite. How would I feel if I did buy a pair of sandals at that shoe store yesterday afternoon, only to come home and see later that day that I could have bought a pair of Chacos at more than 30% off? I'll be honest: I know I would be kicking myself for buying them at the store.
Welp, let's hope these sandals fit.
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