It was a LONG day at the baby store...

One of my obsessive mommy-to-be research projects has been finding a glider for the nursery. I decided early on that I would prefer a glider over a rocker. This decision was based partly on comfort and safety. I also liked the 'gliding' motion of the glider as opposed to the rocking motion of the rocker. No matter, it was a place of obsession since, oh I don't know, September??

My parents very graciously offered to help purchase a glider/rocker of my choosing as a present for Baby Tigger. So then I searched high and low for a glider that met my specifications. Very quickly I ran into a small problem...literally. Most gliders are designed for the 'average' sized woman, who is 5'4". This placed the top of the gliders at a very uncomfortable nape of neck or lower position for me. The solution? Reclining gliders designed to allow people to lay their head on them. Problem? They cost nearly twice as much as the regular gliders AND you drop the ottoman. Yuck!

I then turned to Craigslist to see if I could find a previously loved glider within my price range - no such luck. Sure, that perfectly tall glider could have come along some day, but let's face it, I'm in the South where women tend to be closer to the average height anyway. Plus, Craigslist hasn't taken off here in Columbia like it has in Boston or other larger metro areas. It gets a decent amount of foot traffic (in fact, we recently have sold a car, dishwasher and fridge through Craigslist), but it just isn't the 'go to' place.

So it was with immense excitement and relief that my mom announced recently she discovered that Babies R Us was having a sale on all of their gliders. All gliders, including special orders, are 20% off through Thanksgiving. Awesome! This meant that the glider I had found that was tall enough was just barely outside of my original budget once savings took effect. So between Baby Tigger and my birthday, we were gonna make it swing. Then on Thursday, I received a sales email from BRU and decided that the glider goddesses were smiling on me. Right there in my inbox was a coupon that said "Save 15% ALL already reduced gliders" - 35% off people. It's the stuff dreams are made off. Amazingly, the coupon was valid for two days, including yesterday which was my previously planned day of purchase.

With coupon in hand, I headed to BRU yesterday, full of anticipation. I had done some quick calculations, and for a mere $26 more than the original (read 20% off) price of just the glider, I could now get a glider, ottoman and side table. The $26 was cheaper than the nursing stools in the store! Awesome! So I called my mom to share the good news, and got to the nitty gritty of picking colors. And then I tried to place my order....

The associate helping me wasn't sure about the coupon, so asked the manager who nixed the coupon. So I reverted from plan B back to plan A of ordering just the stand alone glider. The next 30 minutes consisted of a sales associate and manager both struggling to figure out how to order my glider with the change in fabric color I wanted. Neither knew how to work the special order computer program, and were making silly mistakes like confusing floor model fabric color with the floor model glider name. I was a good girl and didn't offer my opinion on their search techniques (although, I did tell the manager what I thought about not being able to use the 15% off coupon when he first came over...).

Finally they found the one associate in the store who knew what he was doing, and 10 minutes later we had the right glider, wood stain and fabric color combination. Now they were conversing about which I was actually ordering, since they could really only tell based on price. When the manager said, "No she doesn't want the combo, just the glider." I piped up with, "If you give me the additional 15% off, I'll take the combo. It's what I was originally going to do." And he responded, "You have been waiting an awfully long time so I'm going to help you out. I can't give you the coupon today, but I will write on the back that you'll get a price adjustment when you pick up the order." I thanked him profusely and finished my order. So in three months, I get to pick up my special order glider, ottoman and side table and get my 15% price adjustment. WOOT!

But I am going to post the coupon here - hopefully some of you readers can tell me why, exactly, this coupon didn't work....

Notice how the coupon says it works for ALL already-reduced gliders. Okay, perfect. Then the fine print says 'not valid with any other "R"Us offer for same item or on prior purchase.' Not really sure what this means since ALL gliders are on sale in the store. How could you possibly use this coupon in the store if they're all on sale and have that line apply?? (I was told, by the way, that the coupon would have worked on in-stock store items which were all the shorter gliders). Anyway, I'm very pleased that it worked out and am thankful the staff worked so hard to get me the glider I wanted. I cannot WAIT to pick it up and get it in the nursery. With it taking up to 14 weeks, the rest of the nursery will be ready by then too. Crazy!