Shoe Dilemma

A while ago, possibly as far back as Christmas I stopped by Nordstrom Last Chance and found Noel some church shoes. Kenneth Cole Reaction, Black leather, size 7, super cute and only $12.99. I have a tough time finding shoes for him, since he's got wide feet. Target shoes in my opinion are overpriced for what they are - I'd pay $12.99 for a pair of generic shoes that hurt his feet and he'd kick them off all the time. Noel had three pairs of shoes, a pair of Airwalk sneakers I got at Baby Bloomer consignment for $5.00, the church shoes, and a pair of red crocs I found at the croc outlet for $4.00.

All in one week - he grew out of the sneakers, lost one croc somewhere, and started complaining that the Kenneth Cole's were too tight. Too tight? They are size 7 (my kids have tiny feet)! A closer look and I noticed that one shoe was slightly smaller than the other and an even closer look under the tongue of the smaller shoe, I could see the size 5M - with the 5 colored over. My poor boy has been wearing mismatched shoes all this time!

Now I am a big fan of Last Chance. I love being able to find "new" merchandise at an low price. I've bought nice nordstrom dress shirts for Aaron for $9.99. I've gotten dresses for $5.00 and t-shirts and cami's for a buck.

A few things I've learned about Last Chance:

1. Do not take kids with you

2. Be prepared for long lines and a lot of people

3. I better be in love with items I'm buying because they post all over the store - Absolutely No Returns

But how can that be fair? - they put the wrong sizes together. Somewhere in the store, there had to be another pair with mismatched sizes, right? If I could find that pair - I could sneak swap shoe for shoe. I was fully prepared do so. I even polished up the size 5 to look like new again and put the pair in my purse. Then I got in the car and headed to Last Chance, sweaty palms, and heart racing.

When I walked into the store, the shoes aisles were packed. I elbowed about three women to get to the children's shoes. I quickly found some Stride Rite - size 6 1/2 wide Brown leather shoes, pic below, that would work for church for $12.99 - the current model, (link above), sells for $49. I also found a pair of blue crocs in his size for $9.99. That's not as good as the $4.00 i got at the outlet - but those are the only sandals that really fit his wide feet and this color is more boyish.


Then I found these new balance tennies for Claire for $12.99:


They sell here for $42.99.

O.K. so now to find the swap shoe... I searched and searched and could not find. It's probably a good thing. I was having visions of alarms, and handcuffs, and being questioned by store officials and police officers...

Finally, I found a friendly looking sales lady who was restocking more shoes and told her my predicament with the mismatched shoes. I didn't have a receipt... She looked at me and sighed and deep sigh and I waited for her response...

"Do you have the shoes?"

"Yes", and I showed them to her

She took them and examined them and paused...I must have looked somewhat pathetic.

"We'll do a one time exchange for you".

I thanked her profusely - then found one more pair of shoes... for me... Shoe dilemma solved, maybe over solved.

update: Claire took her $4.oo crocs off at the splash pad the other day and they are gone. We searched the whole park and asked numerous people if they had seen them. Good thing I only spent $4 on them. Then I found Noel's missing croc sandal in a pile of toys that we had searched through many times before just the other day...