Good prices happen to those who wait

Oh, how I 've waited for you, Report Signature Sigourney pumps!

With your 4-inch stiletto prop, almond-toe lead, vintage-inspired buckle and realistic-looking croc embossing, it was nothing if not an unexpected love-at-first-sight when we initially met. I normally don't graze in the closed-toed pasture, I'm a predictable, show-off-my-black-polish-pedi peep toe girl, but as life has taught me in recent years, sometimes the best chances to take are those which we look back on and place in the "I would never have thought..." category.

More than a year ago, while in search of that ideal sexy-but-not-too-sexy office dress shoe, I drop-down menu-ed "7.5," "black," and "2-3/4" and up" on Zappos.com and found you sitting prettily two-thirds of the way down on page 17 of 56.

There you were and there you stayed for 14 straight months, viewable from six different angles (seven if you count the "closeup"), sale-free at the then prohibitive retail price of $143.95.

I went through countless episodes of "add to basket" therapy - the act of placing an item you know you won't buy in your virtual shopping cart so as to palliate that initial but-I-want-it-so-badly desire - each time more painful than the last to force my hand to the abort-mission red-and-white "X" in the right hand corner of my browser.

I know, I know, I'm the girl who plunked down $300 for her gold-foil Kate Spade Lovers in May 2006 and about that same amount for her pristinely-preserved vintage platform peep toes in February 2007, but $144 for what would be my 14th pair of office-only black pumps? Even with my ridiculously efficient justification-generating machine of a mind, I just couldn't do it.

Until last week.

During my regular round-robin of wishlist-item stalking, I came across the most unexpected discount of the year: my precious pair of Report Signatures had dropped in price by 10% to $129.56. While $144 had been just over that mental spending limit, $130 was well within the me-want-me-buy ballpark.

But just as I was about to reach that final "purchase now" Valhalla, I fortuitously remembered my Charles David Rosa experience from earlier this Winter, and with that on the brain, two words involuntarily tumbled off and out of my moisturized lips: "Internet comparisons."

Prepared for a long online haul, I settled into my couch with a snack of three strawberry Twizzlers and 28 fat-free Pringles (read: two carefully-counted-out servings), popped open a new Foxfire window, consulted "the Google," and low-and-freakin'-behold, what do I find in the very first result but this.

The princeling may not have cared how scorching hot his Mommy looked last night as she took her first steps in those beloved Sigourneys, but he'll certainly appreciate the $102 savings the next time they head to Doggiestyle to replenish his long-ago depleted stock of overpriced organic chicken jerky.