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I just tried out the new shoe site owned by Gap, PiperLime. My usual online shoe shopping is done through Zappos. So I wanted to compare them.

Both have a no questions asked return policy. Both have free purchase and return shipping.
PiperLime has cuter shoes, but Zappos has a wider selection. So far, it’s a draw.

Time to Fulfillment – I ordered shoes from both Zappos and PiperLime on Fri, Oct 26. The Zappos order, I got yesterday, Mon, Oct 29. According to PiperLime, I should be receiving their order by tomorrow.

Time to Return – I tried on the shoes from Zappos, decided to keep one pair and return the other. I just went online, told them what I wanted to return, and printed the return slip and UPS label. I slapped the UPS label on the box and dropped off the box at the UPS store. I expect to receive an email confirming they received it and are crediting my credit card. No muss, no fuss.

Since I haven’t gotten my PiperLime order yet and decided what I want to keep, I will have to post an update when it happens.

UPDATE: I got my PiperLime order today. Two of the three shoes fit. Now I have to choose between the two red pairs. Presentation is really nice. Each shoe box is wrapped with brown tissue paper held with the PiperLime logo. The invoice and return UPS label are in this nice green envelope. I don’t know how much the nice presentation increases my cost. There is a deadline to return the shoes, 12/26, while Zappos allows me up to a year to return orders. Overall, no hassle returns and cute shoes…I will have to try PiperLime again. Especially since my purchases count toward BananaCard points.

I drop a lot of money at BR, the Gap, and Old Navy and wanted to take advantage of the free alterations that comes with a Luxe membership. I called to check to see how far I was from the $800 threshold. Hmm. Doesn’t sound right. So I speak to a rep. She tells me that only purchases at BR count. But I was on the website and it said purchases across all the Gap businesses. So I told her so. She tells me that it’s only for the BR Visa, but the website says for both Visa and BR card.

I then ask for a supervisor because I was annoyed. The supervisor validated the policy per the website, but the qualifying purchases were still at $250. I know that is not true. I use Quicken to track my expenses, so I can say exactly how much I spent, where and when and it is more like $500.

Now here is where you will see my personality and my family’s bain. I had made about $700 worth of purchases in the last 2 weeks that they have not counted yet. That would put me over the $800 threshold even with their inaccurate $250, but I could not let go the BR’s inaccurate accounting. I argued with them and finally, they agreed to send my account to be reviewed by the Luxe manager. I am such a pain. When I am right, I need people to acknowledge I am right. My husband finds it endearing. Not.

Who would have thought that I would be attached to something in Utah, as I have been wanted to return to CA since we moved here. It’s my daughter’s last day at her current daycare. We are moving her to one that just opened up. It’s run by these two chinese ladies and their lessons are in Mandarin and English. It’s been a huge concern for me that my daughter lose her chinese roots as I am the only person who speaks to her in Chinese as my family is in CA.

I dropped off my daughter and 2 dozen cupcakes at the daycare this morning. As I was leaving to return to work, some teachers were saying goodbye (some get off work before I will be there again to pick up my daughter.) And it struck me, that these people helped me raise my child. She has been at that daycare since she was 7 months old, not walking, not talking. They have been a family of sorts for me in Utah. I will miss them a lot. I had to get out of there before I started bawling.

I exchanged contact info with one mom there. Her daughter, Lanie, and my daughter are best friends. Every morning when they see each other, they run to each other and hug. I will be bringing them to the Children’s Museum this Sunday to see the new robot exhibit. I will have to make sure that we keep up with the playdates.

We were rained out for Game 3. Well, really, we were snowed out. Last night we had a 6:15pm game. My kid was not playing per usual. She only runs onto the field to get an airplane ride from Dad who was coaching. Note to self: do not sign her up for sports until she’s at least 4. The 4 year olds were great. They were on the field the whole time and kicking goals, well really dribbling goals. They would try to dribble the ball into the goal around the goalee rather than kicking it in. But regardless of time on the field, all kids love the fruit at half time and the treat at the end of the game. Although, some kids try to gets treats from their own team and the opposing team

Qwest has the worst customer service. They are not rude, just clueless and the info they give you changes from one rep to another.

I used to have Earthlink as my ISP. Up until last Tuesday, that is. I wanted to take advantage of the bundling discount Qwest offers to save Sun a few bucks each month. What a mistake.

First I had to disconnect my Earthlink. Then it takes Qwest 3 business days to set me up with their ISP. I happened to wonder if I needed new hardware and called Qwest to ask. Thank god I did. The rep who set me up with the ISP did not bother to check that my modem was compatible. So I had to order one.

They wanted $60 for the modem, $10 for shipping and I would not get the modem until the day after my internet was up and running. I told them to forget it and cancel the order. I can’t believe that in this technology age, it takes them 3 business days to verify that my previous ISP was disconnected (I could do that for them. I am on my 4th business day without internet and am blogging from the local field office) AND I have to pay $70 for the inconvenience.

The rep convinced me to not cancel the order. The conditions were that the modem would be free and that I would get the modem by Tues, when the internet would be set up. She also promised me a call with the UPS tracking number.

It is Monday. I have no tracking number. I am speaking to my 5th person today from Qwest. UPS does not recognize the tracking number they just gave me. I have used up all my patience.

Now I am on the phone with someone from the business office. She is competent, but terse. I think it’s from having to fix the messes from the front line sales reps. She’s going to ship me a modem next day to arrive tomorrow. If I get the other one as well, I just send one back. Hopefully, by this time tomorrow, I will be working in my pajamas.