Since we
were not really familiar with the Dallas area yet, I mail ordered some items
when we moved here instead of spending time and gas money running
around to get them. Sounds easy right?
No.
My order
from JCPenney ended up with two packages. I received a note in our
mailbox that UPS could not deliver our package, because the address
was incorrect. Wait a minute, how did they get the post card to me
then? Apparently they have a system with the USPS (post office, love
the similar letters), that they give them a partial address to finish
in order to mail the cards. What ever.
I
usually only pick up our mail twice a week when I do laundry at the
laundromat a block away by our mailbox. By the time they tried to
deliver it, and I got the card the expiration date on the card had
expired.
I called
JCPenney to explain what happened and explain that the correct
address was on my receipt from ordering. The gal told me it went
back to the warehouse and would be remailed. She was so nice.
Except! The one package with only one item was lost, and it was the
very, very last one of its kind ever. (This is an item my mother has
been buying for thirty-five years, and I have been for twenty-four.)
Fine, she refunded all of the shipping, and the amount for the
discontinued item.
We
waited, and waited, and waited some more.
Low and
behold the missing package ends up in my mailbox with the correct
address a week after talking to her. I get to keep it for free after
having made a purchase to replace it already. Fine.
We are
still waiting for the remailed one, but everything is fixed making me
feel confident enough to place another order. When I go to pay for
it there is my Wisconsin address, and no credit card on file. Sigh.
Being positive, and apparently stupid, I go ahead and reenter it all
to make a purchase. Of course the receipt comes back with my
Wisconsin address on it for billing. I am not a complete fool I
placed the order to be picked up at the store, so the address was
only for billing. Since I already paid with a credit card, and a
bill would never be mailed I almost left it. My conscience made me
place a call to correct it.
While I
am on hold! (You did not think it would end that easily did you?)
While I am on hold a call comes through from a man I do not know.
"Is this Mary Wald?" "Why yes. Who is
this?"
THIS is
the man who received my remailed package, and was kind enough to open
it to look for a number to call before giving it back to the post
office. An address label had been slapped over the correct address
label with the name and address of a woman who died fifteen years
ago.
I can't make up stuff this bizarre!
Fifteen
years ago he bought his house from a woman liquidating her mother's
estate. Her mother who had just died was named Mary Wald. Hey, at
least this time it was the right town. Some of our mail is going to Plano.
Of
course I hung up on the JCPenney phone system to go get it. Only to
find an email when I came back that the order I had just placed was
refused, because the credit card did not exist. The credit card they
approved just that morning, and I had used to pay for the item in my
hand.
Needless
to say, I am going to let that order disappear into never never land.
I guess I get to go shopping this afternoon.
