Yesterday I had set some lofty goals related to finding shoes to go with my bridesmaid dress and getting the dress altered. I wanted to get all of that done during a long lunch.
I started out my quest by calling Payless Shoes and asking about their dyeable shoes. When I got the necessary info., I headed to the branch nearest my workplace and walked in--only to find that they don't have the dyeable shoes...the other branch across town does. No problem! I hopped in my car and went to the other store. When I got there, I walked in carrying my dress and went straight to the aisle I was looking for. I was practically accosted by these two ladies in the aisle..."Are you looking for shoes to go with that dress?" I told them yes. "Let us see the dress!" I complied, thinking they were just going to comment on the beauty of the thing. "Silver. You need silver shoes." What?? To go with my apple colored dress? "Yes, silver! It will pick up the beading in the empire waist!" No! NOOOOO! I told them I was just going to get some shoes dyed. "You don't NEED to get shoes dyed. It will look better with silver shoes. Right here! Here's the shoe...hold the dress up!" UM....I don't think you're supposed to wear white/silver open toed shoes after Labor day. "This IS the shoe!!!" But the bride has certain rules. "Don't worry about that, this is the shoe!" Dear Lord, please help me not to offend these people as they are quite a bit bigger than me and outnumber me two to one.
Finally the ladies left (did I mention they were just fellow shoppers and not employees of the store?). Then the real fun began. I learned that there was only one closed toe version of dyeable shoe to choose from. The manager came over and was very helpful. He brought me the book that displays all of the colors available and we figured out which shade I needed. Then I noticed that the shoe I wanted was not pictured in the book. I told him and he couldn't find it either. He called what must have been every branch of the store in the state and couldn't get anyone to answer the phone in any of the stores. I spent about an hour at Payless and when I left, I still hadn't been able to order any shoes. The manager took down my name and number and promised to call me later. Since I wasn't sure if that shoe would be available, I couldn't get the dress altered (they have to know how high your heel is before they can hem the dress).
On my way back to work, I stopped by the biggest shoe store in town and inquired about dyeable shoes. "Oh yes, we have two styles....but we don't dye them."
"OH, so do you just have an affiliation with someone else who dyes them?"
"No."
"So you sell dyeable shoes, but you don't know who in town dyes shoes?"
"That's right."
Great. So I stopped by one more shoe store on the way back to work and they didn't do dyeables at all.
When I got back to work, I had a message from the Payless manager saying he had found all of the information he needed and I could stop by at my convenience and pay for the order.
I stopped by after work and placed the order. There's a sticker on the shoes that says "$19.99" but you can't buy the shoes that are in the store (I asked because I wanted to buy a pair, wear them for the alteration, and then bring them back in and have them dyed the next day). So when I paid for the shoes and found that they were $40, I asked how much the dying process costs. The lady said "they don't tell us." "It's $19.99 if you just buy the shoes that we have in the store and don't have them dyed, so I guess it's about $20 to have them dyed." But you CAN'T buy the shoes in the store! They're only available if you order a dyed pair...which apparently is $20 more than the sticker on the shoe. I smell false advertising!
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