Around Christmas, I started thinking about what I might buy for my birthday. Yes, I sometimes buy myself a birthday present – it’s a good excuse to get something that I wouldn’t otherwise buy or that no-one else is likely to buy for me! Three years ago, I bought myself Coiling Dragon. Two years ago, it was Lucky Moves. Last year, I bought my first Pandora Essence beads and bracelet.
This year, I added the Intuition bead to my Pandora Essence collection.
Although I do use my birthday to rationalize special beads, this one still gave me pause. It’s not an inexpensive bead, so I could only justify it as part of a promotion. It wasn’t in Pandora’s huge post-Christmas sale, but I knew that they usually do a promotion in March, so I figured I could get it then.
As March approached, something concerned me: it wasn’t on the Pandora Canada website anymore. It appeared for some other countries, but not Canada. Yet, I didn’t see it on the recently retired list, so I held out hope that it was just a glitch.
A few days before the Canadian promo started, it popped up on Rue La La, both feeding my concern that it was retired, but also giving me an opportunity to get it! I had to decide whether to pay shipping and duties from Rue La La, or risk waiting until the Canadian promo started (after the Rue La La offer ended) and it not being there. I chose Rue La La.
For those who might not know, a day after the Canadian Pandora promo ended, Rue La La cancelled all international Pandora orders. Including orders made the previous week. Including those already marked shipped, such as mine (I guess shipped doesn’t really mean that). So, no bead from Rue La La. A bit more digging also confirmed that the bead was retired.
So, how did I manage to have a happy birthday after all? My luck changed. Three days after the Rue La La cancellation notice, I got another shipping notice saying that my order was, in fact, shipped. I maintained a small dose of skepticism until the package arrived at my door, but wasted no time opening it.
Birthdays deserve a little treat.