Let’s starts with the ‘ups’ –

~ September 27th I ordered a gift from Etsy for a friend, just a ‘giggle’ present. On October 6th I received the USPS tracking number and signed up for email updates. Since then – crickets. No updates, status still ‘not yet received by USPS’. So this morning I sent a note to the seller asking at what point is this package declared ‘lost in transit’. The seller got back to me minutes later to apologise. They had a large influx of orders, items are handmade, they work alone and indeed my friend’s package has still not been taken to the post office.  The seller said they would mail it out tomorrow and put a little something extra in the package to make up for the delay.

So Jennifer, if you are reading this – it will be another week until your giftie gets to you and there will be a surprise in it – I have no idea what that will be but I hope it’s fun.

~ Amazon has gotten too big for its britches and is pissing me off but on the other hand their customer service is spot on. I ordered some Hanes t-shirts, plain ole cotton ones and I received Hanes Nano t-shirts. Nano t-shirts are some kind of stretchy material and they are cut quite small. NOT what I ordered. But when I checked my order somehow it had magically changed to Nano t-shirts. WTH? Plus – they weren’t real Hanes but some kind of knock off.

I tried to do a return and refund but the web site would only let me exchange them for the same item in a different size Double and triple WTH. So I put in a request for a telephone call and seconds later Amazon Customer Service calls me, we straighten out the situation, they send me a pick-up notice and boom! I hustle the returns package down to the front desk to be picked by UPS.

So a ‘down’ became an ‘up’ – that was easy.

As for ‘downs’ –

~ You know that nice new mattress I said I bought last week? Well I won’t get to enjoy it.  My husband’s health has taken a turn for the worse and his breathing is labored and noisy – they can hear it in Cleveland noisy. Hell, they can hear it on Mars noisy.  If I want to get any rest I’m going to have to sleep in the bed in my office. I can still hear him but I can also close the door – which I won’t do because if he calls out for help in the night I need to hear that.

So that’s a down on a whole lot of different levels.

~ We have been warned, by both of the grocery chains we shop at, that there are grocery supply issues so for the next few weeks there will be empty shelves and reduced availability of many products.  There was a segment on the local news the other night on the subject and they advised folks to start doing their Thanksgiving shopping early. So now, along with skyrocketing food prices there is a food shortage. Or rather a food delivery slow down. Or however you want to describe it. No further explanation was given – no food? no deliveries? – no one said.

I’m not terribly worried about it. We don’t require much and there is always peanut butter and jelly.