I Said I'd Never Do It, But I Did It Again

I stressed myself out over a toy (well, two toys) again.

~~~

Back when the big boys got their twin sized beds, I purchased bed rails for them. I figured I'd have them on hand just in case the boys had trouble staying in their beds with all of that crazy moving they do while they sleep. The rails sat in their boxes in my kitchen gathering dust, so I decided it was finally time to return them. It's been four months without anyone falling out, so I doubted they were going to start flopping to the floor at this point.

I also had to return the Nap Nanny I bought while Jack was a newborn. The Nap Nanny was recalled in December (and I later learned that the version I had was actually recalled in July of the year I bought it--2011. Oops), but when I brought it out storage to take it back, the boys liked lounging on while watching television. Finally they had lost interest in it. Now was the time. (Besides, from what I saw online, I could get back $80 for it, because it had been recalled.)

Off I went to Babies R Us. I plopped the bed rail boxes on the counter and handed over my receipt. After a few moments, they informed me that my allotted 90 days for a full refund were up. The best they could do was give me the lowest sale price of the rails from the last 30 days. I was really annoyed, but what could I do about it? It ended up that I got all but $10 of my original price. Grr.

Fine. Whatever.

We moved on to the Nap Nanny. It took them a long time before they could even find the Nap Nanny in their system. Four employees later, they found it. They rang up the recall refund and gave me a gift card with a total of $140 on it.

Wait. What?

I asked her to repeat the number. Yes, it was $140. Um...

Here is where I experienced an ethical dilemma. My thoughts ran like this:

"Wait. What happened to the $80 listed on their own website? Surely this is wrong."

"Should I say something to them? No that's stupid. Maybe I read it wrong. I mean, FOUR of them were working on this. One of them had to have known what they were doing..."

"On the other hand, they wouldn't let me use my receipt because I was a whole two weeks after the 90 days. Maybe this is Karma getting back at them!"

In the end, I took the gift card, but I admit that I felt guilty about it. As I headed to my next destination, I called my mom to confess my sins and apparently gave her a bit of comic relief at the expense of her crazy daughter. lol.

The worst part, though, was that I figured my ill-gotten gains would thwart the last part of my plan.

What plan, you ask? The plan to get a toy before we left on our trip to San Diego.

Remember this toy--that one I got up at the crack of dawn to go to Toys R Us to buy for a Christmas gift?

Well those LeapPads turned out to be one of the boys' favorite toys. Since they got them we have continued to add games and videos to them until we found ourselves with LeapPads that no longer had enough memory to hold all of the Apps we had for them. The boys could no longer use the drawing feature or take pictures because there just wasn't enough room on their hard drives.

So, I thought it would be best for us to upgrade to the LeapPad2.

I had planned it all out. I'd use the boys' Toys R Us gift cards they got for their birthday and what I got back for the bed rails and Nap Nanny to help pay for them. I figured I'd have only a minimal amount left to pay out of pocket. It was perfect.

Now of course I should add that I had left this little shopping excursion until the day before we left on our trip to San Diego. This was not a good thing because I knew my plan could fall apart at any moment. Now that the returns at Babies R Us had gone too well, that had to mean the plan was shot. Things work out that way when I make plans. But, I went to Toys R Us anyway.

I walked into to TRU and headed to their Leap Frog aisle. There were no LeapPad2s. Darn. On a whim, I asked a girl walking around when they expected their next shipment.

"You know, you should check in the electronics department. Sometimes they put them there, too," she said.

Off I went. Wouldn't you know it that they had exactly TWO LeapPad2s in their display case? I could hardly believe it. Plus, with the extra money from the Nap Nanny return, I didn't have to pay anything out of pocket for the toys after all.

Score!

Now the big boys have new LeapPads that have all of the games, videos, and music in one place and Jack has inherited one of the older LeapPads.

And you know what? The LeapPads were wonderful for our trip. Shawn rocked out to music the entire car ride down to San Diego while Jason played more than a few games of "I Spy." Jack even got the chance to watch a cartoon himself. It was perfect.

A girl could get used to everything working out like planned, you know. I have to admit it is pretty cool when it does. Now where's that piece of wood to knock? Anyone got any salt to throw? :)