There’s a lot of freeloaders out there. I’ve seen people skirmish and bruised friendships over the Gollum-like effects of shoe envy. Tell grown men of almost any financial background that there’s free footwear out there and they’ll start scheming to make sure that they get their size, a size down, a size up, their girl’s size or something just to avoid feeling left out. It has that kind of power. Back in May 1989, Lincoln, Nebraska’s police force created a fake shoe store setup with the worst hand drawn signage of all time to dupe several alleged crooks with outstanding arrest warrants into thinking they were going to get some free adidas or Avia shoes. And, like Homer Simpson turning up for a sting to get his free boat, they turned up at the ‘Grabar Athletic Footwear Inc’ — a play on the old prison nickname ‘greybar hotel‘ and a proto popup store of sorts — to get their tennis shoes and even filled out an athletic needs questionnaire that was actually their arrest paperwork in disguise. There’s some good footage of the sparse and suspect looking store space and gullible victims in this HLN YouTube upload. I thought this kind of thing only ever happened in comedies, but it’s all very real. In 2014, I’m inclined to think that Air Jordan giveaways in a reopened Grabar could still pull in a few fugitives. One day, somebody should turn this into an Argo style movie adaptation.
GWARIZM 