The girls have been wanting the Bella Ballerina shoes from Sketchers since they heard about them earlier this year. My Mother in Law has been planning ever since to get them for the girls for Christmas. But they have been rediculously hard to find. She went to every store she could think of and I spent countless hours online trying to find the right sizes for decent prices. After so long, I  gave up on decent prices and just started looking for the right size.

I finally hit paydirt at Nordstrom, and felt pretty good about at least getting no shipping and I thought, no tax, ordered the shoes, and sat back to wait for their arrival. Apparently there is now a Nordstrom in TN, so I was charged tax after all, but at least I didn’t have to spend gas money to get them. They arrived as scheduled, and in plenty of time for Christmas. Yay! Or so I thought. I opened the boxes to see what they looked like in person, but I was trying to be sneaky about it because the girls were around and I didn’t want to ruin the surprise. So, I didn’t take anything out of the boxes, just took a peek.

I passed them on to my Mother in law for her to wrap and put under her tree. A couple of days later she calls and says, “Please tell me you have a size 1o.5 Bella Ballerina shoe at your house!?” I was so confused because I knew that I had left everything in it’s original packaging and didn’t even take anything out of the boxes. I said, no, both pairs were in the bigger box. She said, well, we have a problem. Because there was only 1 shoe in one of the boxes. I felt a brief moment of panic. Because do you know what would happen if Reagan opened the box and there was only one shoe? Or maybe even worse, if Hannah were to get a pair and not Reagan? Meltdown of the century is what would have happened. I don’t even want to have that mental picture in my mind!! The nightmares I would have as a result would be terrifing! I’m so thankful my Mom in law looked deeper into the boxes than I did in time for us to fix it!!

So this morning I spent some time on the phone with Brenda, a very nice and helpful customer service agent with Nordstrom, trying to resolve the issue. Of course it couldn’t be as easy as them shipping me another shoe and being done with the whole thing. Of course they are out of that style and size store wide. She couldn’t have been nicer though and agreed to refund the money so I could find another pair somewhere else. I had a feeling this would be the case, so I had done more online searching this morning and found two stores with the right size. Different colors than what Hannah will get, but hopefully that won’t cause too much of a problem! At least it’s the same style!

And here’s where it  turns into a good thing, maybe. (Assuming they are delivered in time for Christmas!) Anytime I shop online I first go through Ebates to get cash back just for shopping through their site. I’ve only found a couple of websites that don’t use them. After Ebates I check two other coupon/promo code sites for more discounts. In this case I used www.retailmenot.com and found a 25% off coupon for the store I was using. So after everything, I ended up with a $50 pair of shoes for $37.50 plus no tax or shipping, and I’ll get 2% cash back through Ebates.  (I know 2% isn’t much, but different stores offer different percentages, some up to 20% cash back,and it all adds up) So maybe this was a blessing in disguise? Nah…I’d rather it have been done right the first time!