Uh oh...I discovered something tonight that I think is going to cost me a lot of money. Other Salt Lake valley folks probably already knew about this. I did not. The abbreviated version of the phone call went something like this:

Setting: yellow dials the Backcountry.com gearhead line to ask a gearhead (gh) about the tongue on a particular trail running shoe. Backcountry.com's warehouse is located in a suburb of SLC. Note that Steep & Cheap and Chainlove are both Backcountry.com outlets.

y: hi gearhead. Can you tell me if the tongue on the Merrell Overdrive is gusseted or not?

gh can't answer the question, puts yellow on hold to check with the other gearheads

gh: you know, there isn't anyone here right now that can answer that question. Let me take your email and I'll have someone contact you tomorrow.

y (almost sarcastically): gawd, I wish I could just come down to the warehouse and try the shoes on.

gh: well, you can! We have a full retail outlet, and we can pull anything from the warehouse that you'd like!

y: really? well I think I just kissed all of my disposable income goodbye...

The End.

I'm in trouble. I'll be venturing over there tomorrow after work.