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A stampede of need
Sunday, June 1, 2008
The economy is tanking? Consumer spending is down? Tell that to the shoppers at the Vacaville outlet stores. Tell it to me, who just paid $311 for a pair of shoes.
What I saw last Sunday, followed by what I did, still amazes me.
I needed shoes. It’s a necessity item. Not a shopping spree. I wanted some run-abouts. My old pair is ripped, torn, scuffed, limp, frazzled, and smelly. Susan and I were driving back from Sacramento and decided to stop for Rockport ProWalkers at the outlet stores because I have weird feet. It seems only Rockports fit me well.
We took the Nut Tree Exit and pulled into the massively huge parking lot ringed in shops. We immediately encountered gridlock, bumper-to-bumper traffic. “What’s this?”
Cars were stopped to allow throngs of bag-toting pedestrians to traverse crosswalks on their way to their next shop stops. The mall was bulging. People and cars everywhere.
We couldn’t find a single empty parking space. We threaded our way slowly, like a shoe lace being put on without gloves at 20 below zero, across the whole parking acre, clear to the back. Nothing. Worse, in each aisle sat two or three cars, idling, in gear, drivers at the wheels, waiting for someone to pull out.
“Can this be? How can this be?” we chanted. Why are so many on a shopping frenzy? What happened to the recessed economy, the collapsed consumer, the foreclosed and the forlorn?
Could it be that all these people were spending their tax refunds?
Mobius logic, Batman. That behavior runs counter to the stream of spring surveys and interviews with Average Joes and Natural Janes around the country. Those surveys concluded that most Americans intended to use their tax rebates to pay bills. Climb out of debt. Pay down Comcast, ATT and Visa. They were going to pay dentists and gym fees. Buy gas.
Could all these nationwide surveys be wrong? Were those survey participants white lying out of a sense of pride and responsibility, concealing their latent impulsivity? Could it be that Americans’ will to shop is so strong that many succumbed to temptation?
Most Americans have already gone without shopping for a long time. A lengthy list of necessary items has backlogged -- shoes, cologne, jelly beans. It could be that this phenomenon was a stampede of need.
Anyhow, we left without shoes. What to do?
Somewhere over the weekend with our kids, during a shoe and foot conversation, after thirty years of describing my sorry feet, my daughter Kristi asked me.
“Pops. Have you ever gone to the Good Feet store?”
“Never heard of the place” ended that line of questioning.
However, leaving the sold-out mall on Sunday, Susan said, “Well, let’s try a Good Feet store. There’s one near Costco at the Cordelia Exit.”
We did. Got there 4 minutes before closing. Funny little shoe store. They only had about a dozen pair, off in the corner. “Hi, I’m Terry. Welcome to Good Feet.”
“Where’s all your shoes, Terry? I need me some Rockports.”
“Sorry. We don’t carry Rockports. We’re in the shoe insert business. Arch supports.”
“Ahhhhhhh. I seeeeeee. Arch supports. I didn’t know. Hmm. Not a bad idea. Worth investigating.”
Back in college, DuBois, Pennsylvania, Gino and I were walking atop a row of abandoned railroad boxcars, planning action for a film. I suggested a dramatic leap down to a flatbed car to please the audience. My actors called me crazy, so I jumped to prove them wrong and collapsed the arch my right foot in an extremely hard landing.
“Let me see those inserts, Terry.”
“I am going to start you at the far end,” he said after taking my footprints and measurements. “I’ll set you up with maximum arch support first.”
He put beige lifts in a nice pair of black sneakers. I laced them on and walked across the floor. “Holy Toledo Ohio. That hurts so good. I feel like I’m walking on golf balls.” I sat back down. “Terry, my friend. These are great. I think I want them. How much?”
“The shoes are $100 and the lifts are $299.”
Boing. “Say what?” I asked. He smiled wanly and nodded. “Geez, oh, man, Terry. That’s steep. What else you got?”
He showed me a less radical pair, the Midflex Maintainers -- wafer thin, springy, transferable to all my shoes, “$190.”
They felt spectacular. “Terry, how can this little patented piece of hoodoo plastic cost so much?” He smiled wanly and shrugged.
I bought them. Wore them home. Used them to walk down to the Goodwill Store near the taco truck the other day and buy myself a taco and a $3.99 Abercrombie & Fitch pinpoint oxford cotton dress shirt to celebrate my new happy feet.
We haven’t got our checks yet.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
The economy is tanking? Consumer spending is down? Tell that to the shoppers at the Vacaville outlet stores. Tell it to me, who just paid $311 for a pair of shoes.
What I saw last Sunday, followed by what I did, still amazes me.
I needed shoes. It’s a necessity item. Not a shopping spree. I wanted some run-abouts. My old pair is ripped, torn, scuffed, limp, frazzled, and smelly. Susan and I were driving back from Sacramento and decided to stop for Rockport ProWalkers at the outlet stores because I have weird feet. It seems only Rockports fit me well.
We took the Nut Tree Exit and pulled into the massively huge parking lot ringed in shops. We immediately encountered gridlock, bumper-to-bumper traffic. “What’s this?”
Cars were stopped to allow throngs of bag-toting pedestrians to traverse crosswalks on their way to their next shop stops. The mall was bulging. People and cars everywhere.
We couldn’t find a single empty parking space. We threaded our way slowly, like a shoe lace being put on without gloves at 20 below zero, across the whole parking acre, clear to the back. Nothing. Worse, in each aisle sat two or three cars, idling, in gear, drivers at the wheels, waiting for someone to pull out.
“Can this be? How can this be?” we chanted. Why are so many on a shopping frenzy? What happened to the recessed economy, the collapsed consumer, the foreclosed and the forlorn?
Could it be that all these people were spending their tax refunds?
Mobius logic, Batman. That behavior runs counter to the stream of spring surveys and interviews with Average Joes and Natural Janes around the country. Those surveys concluded that most Americans intended to use their tax rebates to pay bills. Climb out of debt. Pay down Comcast, ATT and Visa. They were going to pay dentists and gym fees. Buy gas.
Could all these nationwide surveys be wrong? Were those survey participants white lying out of a sense of pride and responsibility, concealing their latent impulsivity? Could it be that Americans’ will to shop is so strong that many succumbed to temptation?
Most Americans have already gone without shopping for a long time. A lengthy list of necessary items has backlogged -- shoes, cologne, jelly beans. It could be that this phenomenon was a stampede of need.
Anyhow, we left without shoes. What to do?
Somewhere over the weekend with our kids, during a shoe and foot conversation, after thirty years of describing my sorry feet, my daughter Kristi asked me.
“Pops. Have you ever gone to the Good Feet store?”
“Never heard of the place” ended that line of questioning.
However, leaving the sold-out mall on Sunday, Susan said, “Well, let’s try a Good Feet store. There’s one near Costco at the Cordelia Exit.”
We did. Got there 4 minutes before closing. Funny little shoe store. They only had about a dozen pair, off in the corner. “Hi, I’m Terry. Welcome to Good Feet.”
“Where’s all your shoes, Terry? I need me some Rockports.”
“Sorry. We don’t carry Rockports. We’re in the shoe insert business. Arch supports.”
“Ahhhhhhh. I seeeeeee. Arch supports. I didn’t know. Hmm. Not a bad idea. Worth investigating.”
Back in college, DuBois, Pennsylvania, Gino and I were walking atop a row of abandoned railroad boxcars, planning action for a film. I suggested a dramatic leap down to a flatbed car to please the audience. My actors called me crazy, so I jumped to prove them wrong and collapsed the arch my right foot in an extremely hard landing.
“Let me see those inserts, Terry.”
“I am going to start you at the far end,” he said after taking my footprints and measurements. “I’ll set you up with maximum arch support first.”
He put beige lifts in a nice pair of black sneakers. I laced them on and walked across the floor. “Holy Toledo Ohio. That hurts so good. I feel like I’m walking on golf balls.” I sat back down. “Terry, my friend. These are great. I think I want them. How much?”
“The shoes are $100 and the lifts are $299.”
Boing. “Say what?” I asked. He smiled wanly and nodded. “Geez, oh, man, Terry. That’s steep. What else you got?”
He showed me a less radical pair, the Midflex Maintainers -- wafer thin, springy, transferable to all my shoes, “$190.”
They felt spectacular. “Terry, how can this little patented piece of hoodoo plastic cost so much?” He smiled wanly and shrugged.
I bought them. Wore them home. Used them to walk down to the Goodwill Store near the taco truck the other day and buy myself a taco and a $3.99 Abercrombie & Fitch pinpoint oxford cotton dress shirt to celebrate my new happy feet.
We haven’t got our checks yet.
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