click here for my SOCIAL JUSTICE BLOG
Get your ow
n diary at DiaryLand.com! contact me older entries newest entry

11:01 a.m. - 2005-12-14
please, please, please not again.
Since we're all frantically scrambling to finish up all of our Christmas shopping, I thought I'd share a little holiday gift giving tale with you.

When I was living in Seattle, I thought I'd get my parents' presents through the Internet and have them shipped directly to their house. I told them, "When packages come in December adressed to me, just put them on my bed upstairs and I will deal with them when I get there."

Sometime around December 21st I arrived home to good old North Versailles, PA. I went up to my room and on the bed were several packages but the pile was one box short. I asked my parents "Are you sure nothing else came?" Yes, they were sure. I begin calling the SkyMall people to track down the car seat cover for Pet owners who have SUVs. See, it's like this fabric contraption that both covers the back seat, protecting it from dog stink and hair and also sort of scoops forward and acts as a divider so that the dog for which this is required cannot jump with it's muddy paws from the back to the front seat onto your lap and brand new white courderoys. Ok, maybe it was a bit of a selfish gift.

Anyway, it's nowhere to be found. See, the thing about me and my parents and Christmas presents is that while I consider myself a moderately good gift giver, I think I usually kind of strike out when it comes to mom and dad. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I can't afford anything really, really great. Maybe it's because they already have everything. Maybe it's the pressure, because I have to say, they come up with some pretty amazing stuff sometimes. Anyway, I was rather pleased with myself that year, thinking this was a functional, thoughtful gift from a decent company that I thought she would really like.

And it wasn't there.

I get on the internet, track the shipping. I call the company. They tell me it was delivered. Like a week ago. I ask my parents again. My mother gives me a withering look and tells me I can find all packages addessed to me on my bed like I specified. I call the company again. We discuss the possibility someone stole it off of the porch while no one was home. After hours of phone calls with various people, they agree to express ship me a new one free of charge! OK! Great. It will be here by Christmas Eve.

Christmas eve arrives. Afternoon comes. No effing package.

I call again, this time at my wits end. I am no longer polite. I am begging, pleading, insisting, demanding, but definitely not polite. It wasn't that I was mean, or even what you'd call IMpolite. I was quite simply DESPERATE.

I climb the ladder of customer service representatives for so long I am certain the president of the company is about to take my call. Except that, it being Christmas Eve and all, he is probably with his family in a chalet in the Swiss Alps, with HIS doggie car divider seat cover thingie all wrapped and under the damned tree.

I finally get someone to feel sorry enough for me, that they amazingly agree to OVERNIGHT ship another one, free of charge. It arrives with the fresh snow dusting of Christmas morning with the anticipation of the Baby Jesus. Well, maybe that's a little bit of an exaggeration. But you can imagine the build up after all of this.

I wrap it. I give it. It goes over moderately well, but it did not exactly meet the expectations that had been created, I'm sure. I felt sort of like the little drummer boy and hoped that my effort was worth something more than a dumb little drum solo or a navy blue doggie car seat cover.

Christmas moves along as it does in the dobos household...lot's of people in and out, a little time for a gin and tonic or glass of wine in between visitors. My annual nap in my dad's reclining couch as my relatives leave after breakfast.

The next day, the package that was supposed to arrive on Christmas Eve shows up on the doorstep. Hmm, now we have two of these. Well, anything worth having, there is probably no harm in also having a back-up.

Approximately three days later my mother is cleaning. She calls out for me. "Ummm. Je-esss?"

The original doggy seat cover divider thingie, ordered 11/7/03 is sitting on the floor of the closet. It seems the act of retrieving the package from the front porch, walking up the stairs and placing it in the spare bedroom closet completely escaped my mother's memory.

This year, I am experiecing some potentially similar. I ordered my parents this gift. No, I can't tell you what it is. My mother is Lemonscarlet's biggest fan, well except for maybe J-Di. Anyway, I ordered this thing and had it shipped to Kevin's house. One does not have large items shipped to one's apartment building if it is at all avoidable and one CERTAINLY does not ship things to her Alzeimer's-bound mother's house anymore. We'll find it in a shallow grave a decade from now "Oh my, I have no recollection of getting a shovel from the garage, hauling this large package out back and burying it. Oops."

Well, I ordered the "thing" over 2 weeks ago. Still not there yet. So, you'll have to excuse me. I have business to do with the Internet people.

previous - next

about me - read my profile! read other Diar
yLand diaries! recommend my diary to a friend! Get
 your own fun + free diary at DiaryLand.com!