So last Tuesday I went to the 5th Annual Blessing of the Bikes at Good Samaritan Hospital and among the shwag I accumulated was a 15%-discount coupon for REI. In the ensuing days since my bike was blessed the coupon has been sitting on my desk, having survived several attempts to discard it because I just don’t do a lot of shopping at REI — not only because there isn’t a store near me but also because I’m one of those snarkos who thinks the company’s acronym stands for Really Expensive Indeed.
Well boy howdy am I glad I kept that piece of paper around because yesterday as I was perusing my Sitemeter referals to see who other than The Google was coming to my blog, I found an inbound link from www.jokeisup.com and as it looked wholly unfamiliar of course I clicked on it and found the blog of a cycling dude I believe I met if not on previous Midnight Ridazz or RIDE-Arc rides than last summer during the Hot Knives’ Le Grand Crew ride. Anyway, he had written this post about Bike To Work Day, which discussed the event’s significance and then segued into bike clothing — ultimately concluding with a link pointing readers to my favorite footwear maker — KEEN — who’d apparently decided it was high time to come out with a badass commuter cycling sandal in full SPD-compatible clip glory:
The catch was the link was to REI.com where the shoes were listed at $115. Immediately I tried to do better on the price via Zappos.com and a couple other online shoe sources where I’ve made previous Keen buys, but the best price I could find was $114.75. Oooooo, a whole quarter! And shiny!!
It was then that I remembered the coupon and in a few minutes spent filling in a few form boxes and entering the discount offer’s code, suddenly the shoes were undie a hundie at $17.25 cheaper and I clicked the submit button in triumph!
So thank you Good Samaritan Hospital for hosting the Blessing of the Bikes. And thank you REI for having a table there at the event from which I took the coupon. And thank me for not repeatedly pitching that coupon away. And thank you Sitemeter for logging the hit from Jokeisup.com. And thank you Doctor J at that blog for coming on that beer ride last summer and meeting me. And thank you for putting my blog on your blogroll. And thank you for whoever clicked that blogroll link and came over to my site. And thank you again Doctor J for being a cyclist and writing about Bike To Work Day and discussing your clothing options and linking to those shoes.
I couldn’t have done it without you!
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