State of Confusion

It's no secret to any woman who's been pregnant that babies steal your brain.

Yes, it's true. I don't care what Discovery Health says, with ALL THREE of my pregnancies, I've been "dumbed down". I forget things, process thoughts way more slowly, the whole nine yards.

Unfortunately, in my experience, it often takes up to a year AFTER the baby comes to regain full mental capacity. I also figure there's some sort of direct correlation between the number of children a woman has and the number of brain cells lost to "baby brain".

As crazy as baby brain makes me, though, I do know that I've not completely lost my common sense.

One of the (many) things we had to replace for Mr. Baby was his crib mattress. While we hadn't yet gotten rid of the crib itself (AmenandthankyouJesus!), the mattress was reincarnated as a bed for Princess the Wonder Dog, and, while I'm all about recycling, there's just no way that it was going back into the crib.

So I went online to one of my new favorite shopping sites, Amazon.com. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I'm late to the party. I've had baby brain for the past nine months.

Anyway, I discovered that there are about as many different types of crib mattresses as there are babies. And while I love my children, and want the best I can afford for them, I'm pretty confident that Mr. Baby doesn't need a $299.00 crib mattress.

So off to Walmart.com for me. Now, I'm not a big fan of the Evil Empire, but sadly, for us frugal moms, it works. I found a lovely, highly rated Kolcraft brand crib mattress for a mere $36 in their "Site to Store" program. I called my local Walmart to see if they had that particular model in stock. The associate was gone for a minute to check.

WM Associate: "Yes ma'am, we have that model in stock. It's $57."

Me: "FIFTY SEVEN DOLLARS?! For that model?"

WMA: "Yes ma'am."

Me: "Uhm...it's available on the Walmart.com website for $36. That's a $21 difference!"

WMA: "Yes ma'am. I understand that some things are priced differently on the website."

I don't know if you've used the Site to Store feature of Walmart.com, but it's pretty simple. You place your order and pay for it online, and they ship it directly to the store at no additional charge. We've purchased a few things through the site, and while we've noticed the occasional minor price difference, we've never purchased anything that is marked up more than 50%.

Here are the options as my baby-affected brain worked it out:

a) I can walk into Walmart today and pay $57 plus tax for the mattress.
b) I can order the mattress through Site to Store, pay $36 plus tax, and they will ship the mattress from the warehouse (even though they have them in-stock). In 1-2 weeks, pick it up at the store.
c) I can order the mattress through Site to Store, pay $36 plus tax, plus $3.97 shipping (all STILL $17 cheaper than option a), and they will deliver it TO MY DOOR in 1 week.

Can you guess which one I chose?

I realize that we, as a society, are more into immediate gratification than thinking through things and saving money, but I'm really confused as to the price difference in this situation.

And that's not my baby brain talking!