Aaaaaargh!

I

I wouldn't be caught dead in these shoes, but the locals like abominations like this. These are neither the 760s nor the 993s mentioned below, but blogs are more interesting with pictures, don't you think?

I had it all planned out: a nice cheerful blog entry about how things are looking up: the weather's turned (hot hot hot, but sunny and not skin-crawlingly humid), our new teacher's flight here and my trip to meet her at Incheon in two days are finally all booked, and-- thank Pheidippides-- my wonderful (and largish) new New Balance running shoes arrived today, in plenty of time to save my toes on my next long run (this Sunday, twenty miles).

And then I got home and opened the package.

I ordered two pairs of New Balance model 760, size 11 1/2 D from Road Runner Sports in San Diego.

They sent me two pairs of New Balance model 993, size 12 1/2 B.

These damn things are so long and skinny I think they may be leftover cross-country skis. That's not the type of cross country I do any more.

I paid $265 for these shoes ($75 a pair, $65 for shipping, $10 for a club membership in order to get a 10% discount, and $40 in Korean duty charges). And now I have to wait till morning to yell at some poor sales rep and wait a couple of weeks more to get the right shoes. (Umm... I want the left shoes, too. I meant the correct shoes.)

And I'm not paying $65 to ship 'em back, $65 to ship the good ones here, and $40 for the duty on the new ones.

And there's still that little 20-miler in too-short shoes coming up this weekend...