Shoes

There is nothing worse than buying a toddler a pair of shoes when you are on a budget. Babies grow so fast, it's hard to keep them in clothing. Toddler shoes are especially expensive, because you have to get a good sturdy pair that offers their growing feet the support they need.  I used to love buying shoes for myself - my feet are the one part of my body that don't gain weight when I eat that extra slice of pizza, or when I "forget" to exercise for a week or three. Shoes were always there for me, to comfort me, to make me feel shiny and new. But sad to say, I had to give up this habit some many, many months ago. Now I get my shoes resoled and re-heeled when they wear out. Very sensible, I'll make a good old lady one day.  I also have some shoes in storage, which I'll get out any day now. It'll be like having new shoes again! At least that's what I keep telling myself. But I digress. Back to my tale of shopping with Bee.

Her and I headed out to the Glendale Galleria with the best of intentions, fully expecting to come home with a pair or two of sparkly new shoes for her. It didn't happen.

Instead, I got extremely frustrated, and Bee had tons of fun trying on shoes and throwing around the boxes and tissue paper. In case you haven't noticed, retail stores aren't doing very well these days, and I can tell you why: they have sales on the stuff I don't want, and the stuff I do want is not only not on sale but it's also not the size I need. And forget about customer service, nobody works in these places anymore. You are on your own. So after visiting every single store in that damn mall we walked away empty handed. But at least we had Bee's feet measured.

Armed with this knowledge I decided to go home and buy shoes online. Which is what I should have done in the first place. I ended up buying three pairs of shoes for Bee, all of them on sale, and I didn't have to pay sales tax, which is a whopping 7.25 percent here in the lovely state of California. I did have to pay for shipping, but since most of my items were 50 percent off, I was cool with it. There is nothing like drinking a nice glass of wine while shopping from the comfort of your own home. It was so worth it. So what did Bee and I learn today? Online shopping rules, The Galleria is for fools.