Allow me to introduce you: This is the Kyrie 4 All Star. It is a special release that just dropped in limited numbers. Kyrie is an NBA player. A really good one, I’m guessing, to get his own eye-catching tie-dye shoe.
Pretty sweet, right? My 13-year-old, sneaker-loving/basketball loving son sure thinks so. He was given a gift certificate at Christmas to pick out a new pair of shoes. This is what he decided he wanted. Actually, this style was his second choice. His top, top choice for a shoe to play his most favoritest sport in was some super-special Nike PlayStation dealio and if I remember right, the soles lit up and there was a joystick built in there somewhere and magically, the shoe could make a chunk of money disappear straight out of your checking account. Pretty cool. Also, you had to win a lottery to score a pair. My child, who dragged himself out of bed early on a Saturday, was hugely disappointed that he lost out.
“Don’t worry — there’s always another super cool shoe,” I told him.
Sure enough, there was. This bad boy became available at 8 a.m. on a Thursday — when his bright, shiny self is in school — and so he asked me to buy them for him. OK, easy enough.
Uh, no. Not at all, it turns out.
I set myself an alarm, so I wouldn’t forget and then dutifully hopped off the elliptical after only putting in 20 minutes of pedaling (that part didn’t really bother me). I logged into my Nike account and typed in “Kyrie 4 AS” as instructed and up popped this very pair…. in big boy sizes. I have a big boy, but he’s way bigger than up to a size 7Y. I tried searching under “men.” No dice.
I dialed customer service and while on lengthy hold, I hopped back on the elliptical for five minutes. I wasn’t going anywhere. In more ways than one. I jumped off and then decided to try a live chat. After some false starts, I was connected to someone and spilled out all my troubles. Turns out you need to have an app to order this pair.
Son of a…..*
With the clock ticking, I downloaded the thingie — which of course had none of my account info — so I had to start inputting all my deets plus remember my incredibly intricate Nike password. His size — 11 — was still there. YES! I added to my cart and then started working my way through to claim my his prize. Except “buy now” was gray, which looked really, really wrong. C’mon!
Click! Nothing.
I clicked again. Still nothing.
I started whining to Ruby Ann on the Nike website. She started talking cookies and clearing out caches and that’s how I knew she was helping me from the other side of the globe in some foreign country because she was no longer speaking English to me.
“Can you just check inventory? Please?”
She came back and said they were sold out. But I am stubborn, and I’d already invested nearly half an hour. I went back through all the fields and the address one was red. Why? That was my right mailing address. I scrolled through and there it was — the pesky thing that was holding up this purchase: no phone number. I typed it in and finally “buy now” was black.
Click.
That screen popped up. I also got a purchase order in my inbox, so I’m thinking I did something right.
Chalk up this whole experience to one more thing that we do for our beloved kids, along with busting our humps to get them the sought-after hot toy for Christmas and busting our woo-hoos to push them out of our bodies and getting them braces to straighten their crooked teeth and paying what amounts to the equivalent of a Mercedes Benz so they can play club sports year after year.
So when I get “that look” after asking him to clean his room or pick up his stinky basketball uniform shirt that he took off and then just left on the dining room table to ripen, now I get to remind him about this, uh, adventure. Well look at that — we don’t wear the same size, but I guess I get some mileage out of these shoes, too.
*My husband once uttered this very expletive in front of our kids recently. “You know that reflects badly on Mom, right?” No. 3 informed him.
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