It is satire. 🙂 No #optinside campaign I am aware of…though it does make sense.

My wife and I went skiing. She used to get up early for door buster sales, so I think I’m making progress.

I’ve had good luck in the past with their online Outlet store for similar reasons.

I think that REI is a decent place to buy stuff. I just don’t have much use for their retail stores. If the closest store wasn’t 90 miles away, I might feel differently. At least I might be able to try some of the stuff on and avoid the mail order doesn’t fit blues. The dividend can make a difference. I bought an MSR Windburner with last year’s dividend, although I have no idea what I spent the money on to earn the dividend. As long as they offer good stuff at reasonable prices, I’ll keep buying from them, but I’m not going to pay a premium or buy a bunch of stuff to wear around town.

Our gear choices do seem to oddly coincide in many way ways. I am vertically challenged for sure. But more like Gimli from LOTR vertically challenged. Squat and short. 🙂 (Though less squat in the past few months as I recognized as a desk jockey in my early 40s, I needed to do something about! So I did…)

I’m still an REI member, because it doesn’t lapse. But I find I don’t buy much – because I have the basic kit for 3½ seasons. (I don’t backpack in deep winter. I switch to peak bagging. -10F or so is about my limit for sleeping rough.) When I’ve been upgrading or replacing gear, it’s more likely been a weird mix of the cottage-industry stuff that’s beyond what REI carries, and cheap-ass stuff like undies from Target or fleece clothing from Aunt Sallie.

I made out like a bandit at the REI scratch-n-dent sale when I was first getting back into backpacking, and when I was first outfitting my daughter. Now, it just doesn’t do much for me. I suspect that you’re the same way, since your gear choices and mine seem to be pretty well aligned. Well, once you allow for local conditions and personal differences. A big guy in the Northeast doesn’t get exactly the same stuff as a more vertically challenged individual in the Rockies. But the style is similar.