Project GLOWWORM

This afternoon, my new pair of Chuck Taylor All-Stars arrived from a popular online merchant. I've needed a new pair for months & wanted to purchase my new pair from a brick & mortar merchant, as is my wont, but the merchant where I'd bought my last few pairs did not have what I wanted. They had in stock numerous variations on the theme, but no classic canvas Chucks. What is this effrontery! The large department store having failed abyssmally, I rang around to local shoe stores—not one, not two, but three. These are not cordwainers, but merchants that specialize in mass-manufactured shoes. Only one—Foot Locker, the last vestige of Woolworth's—had any classic canvas high-top All-Stars in stock, but they had high-tops only in red, not my preferred black. They did have low-top, Oxford-style Chucks in black.

I prefer brick & mortar merchants to online merchants, & I prefer small, local merchants to large, national chains, but when there is no local small business that carries what I want & there is no chain big box store that carries when I want, I will turn to the online merchants. Brick & mortar merchants, I gave you the right of first refusal & you refused my business. In the words of the fictional Philip J. Fry:

"Shut up and take my money!"

Bonus! Song o' the Day
Real Can of Yams, "I Never Wanted Anything" from Good or Suck! (The Last Angry Man)

Commentary: "I Never Wanted Anything" isn't about buying shoes, it is a song of heartbreak & romance gone wrong, as all romance goes wrong. Nonetheless, the chorus of "I Never Wanted Anything" came to mind during my brick & mortar disappointment.

"Why do I let myself have
Feelings for you?
All that you wanted I had,
But you wanted more.

"I never wanted anything at all,
Expectations less than what you thought!
Never wanted anything at all,
I never wanted anything at all…"