They don’t call it "Return Everything Indefinitely" for nothing!

Hello friends! A quickie “It’s almost 3 am and we leave in less than 48 hours and I still need to pack this house somehow tomorrow” type of post!

Remember a week back I purchased some Keen Voyageur shoes at REI. For those of you not familiar with REI, it is the outdoor supply store of (most of) the US. (If you are Canadian, it’s like MEC. If you are English, I don’t know what the equivalent is. If you are New Englandish, it’s like EMS.) REI has many useful things for bicycling and camping, and is also renowned for its liberal return policy.

Tuesday evening I was down at the downtown REI doing some last-minute picking-upping. They were having one of their famed big sales, and I noticed that the Keen Voyageurs were now on sale for $70 versus the $100 I originally paid. REI in all its liberal return policy gloriness allows price adjustments on items that have been purchased recently. So I headed up to the Customer Service to get back $30!

But it didn’t go that smooth. Yes, Keen Voyageurs were on sale. But only in one particular color. Everything else about the shoes is the same, just the color. So I could return the shoes I had to exchange them for cheaper shoes and then reap the savings. Now I liked the look of the shoes I already had better than the ones that were on sale. But the difference in looks is subtle, the ones I was wearing had more black. But otherwise they were indistinguishable. Although I find it quite silly that only one color was on sale, and the only way to get the discount was by switching colors, but switch I did. Thirty dollars is thirty dollars. Even if it meant changing shoes right there at the front desk.

I can just imagine what an alien observer must have thought of the transaction.