What's back there, anyway?

On the radio each morning as I go to work there are approximately three different ads: one for a commercial vehicle one that allows your inner painter, floral arranger, or landscape architect to do what it does best by accommodating all your stuff; one for a well-known men's clothing store whose announcer declares, in an astonishingly annoying voice, spectacular sales on everything in the stores including, one presumes, the dressing room curtains; and one for a local remodeling company, representatives of which have visited our home and, despite hinting that they have done work in the neighborhood, have admitted upon questioning that they actually have not, whereupon the Hero has told them to come back after they've done some work for our neighbors. 


Every now and then there is also an ad for a shoe company that shall be referred to here as Van Dyke & Ham, which apparently has a long and distinguished tradition; indeed, from its proudly recited heritage and important-sounding music on the radio ad, one might infer that the company even invented the shoe all by itself.


This ad promises that if the company's shoes do not fit perfectly when you try them on, they WILL fit perfectly after "they take them into that famous little back room and work on them."


What happens, exactly, in this company's "little back room" is not specified in the ad. I imagine there is a shoe horn involved, but one more the size of a shovel, which they use to beat your foot into the shoe. If THAT doesn't work they no doubt have other techniques, probably outlawed by the Geneva Convention, for making the shoe fit. This is offset by the fact that you receive a guarantee for the life of the shoes, voided if "the customer, at any time, removes the shoes from his or her feet."


And if you protest any of this treatment, there is probably ANOTHER little back room not mentioned in the ad, one that is even further removed from the Geneva Convention tenets. 


So if you are ever tempted to try on some shoes at Van Dyke & Ham, you'd do well to act as if the shoes fit you perfectly, even if they don't, and assure the salesman that there is no need to visit the little back room. And if you see an oversized shoe horn anywhere, run.