I'm an REI customer for life

I first got to know and love REI back in college when I was an outdoor recreation guide taking folks on canoeing, kayaking, camping and rock climbing trips.

Even back then, REI was this place where you could (and did) get anything and everything to take care of your outdoors needs. I spent enough money at the REI in San Diego, that I ultimately wound up working there (in the summer of 1990) first off because it was a great environment to spend my daylight hours talking to folks about the very equipment I used extensively on my days away from REI, but more importantly, because I got to participate in "pro deals" where employees could get the equipment at dramatically reduced prices. Heck, I think I actually bought more stuff from REI that summer than I wound up earning. Come to think of it, I believe that was the summer I began to carry the credit card debt that I wouldn't full break out from underneath until 8 years later when I hit the AOL options lottery.

Now flash forward 18 years to where I'm the customer wandering the aisles asking REI staff for recommendations on this, that and the other. When I did my Mt Whitney summit last year, it was the kind folks at REI who helped me pick out an updated pair of hiking boots to replace my 25 year-old Vasques. Of course, the REI folks helped me slide into a new pair of Vasque Switchback GTX boots (less than half the weight of my old pair, whew!), and all indications were that the boots were a perfect fit. At $150 for the pair, they should have been.

But they weren't the perfect fit. After I got back from climbing to the top of Mt Whitney (and back down again) in them, I lost the nails on both my second toes (next to the big toe), and my left big toe is still slowly growing out of its bruised nail these six months post-summit.

Now, it wasn't just my toes that took a beating on the summit run. The boots took a beating during my warm-up hikes around the Bay Area and up at Squaw Valley, and then up and down Whitney itself. Given all those miles (and the mounted crampons), you can imagine the scuff marks on the outside of the boots after all that.

So, what am I to do with a relatively new, yet still visibly worn, pair of boots that don't fit? Especially given I'm going up Mt Whitney again in three months? Well, thanks to REI's 100% satisfaction guarantee, I just take them back to REI, tell them I got the wrong size and I get credited my money back to buy another pair (they're now $160).

I was more than prepared to pay some kind of idiot tax for buying boots too small, but not to the extent of having to eat the entire cost of the boots.

REI's forgiven my mistake and retained me as a customer for life.

I wonder if I can get a pro deal on my next pair of boots?