Watching the Defectives

I think instead of saying I was going to start watching for defectives I should have said I was going to start looking for 100 dollar bills.

Because talk about manifestations! I managed to manifest 3 really annoying defectives in my own life right away.

First, I got a little tape applicator that lays down a line of dry adhesive for card making. It is totally defective! The tape is dry and has no sticky on it at all! It's worse than a very old post-it note. (and you know how annoying those are--they never stick on ANYTHING, has anyone but me ever noticed that?)

Then, the nozzle on my bottle of natural non aerosol orange room spray got stuck in the down position and so it's totally defective.

AND!!! This is the worst! I saw this wonderful recipe portfolio from Lang (the people who make all the calendars that are upscale and take up aisle after aisle in the bookstore around this time of year). I wanted it sooo badly! I had just finished my own Blair Recipe Project and quickly realized that the small binder I had used wasn't big enough to hold all the recipes I really NEED much less the ones that I accumulate all the time. It was only 14 dollars but I had to save up and use my birthday money and wait until I had enough for the postage (which was such a rip-off at 8 bucks for postage and handling. How much handling do they plan on doing to it?)

After 3 or 4 long weeks, it arrived last night and I was so happy! Isn't it pretty? Well, I opened the book to discover THIS:

The pages had been torn out of the ring binder! Before it ever even got to me!

Here is a close up:

And here:

All I could picture is that one of the Handler's whom I just paid 8 dollars to had dropped the binder on the floor and the weight of it had torn out all the pages. Well! Talk about defective!

So I literally LOST SLEEP over this! I had to wait until customer service opened up at some weird time like NOON, back east on the coast, and all night long I obsessed over what to say and how to say it. In my mind I planned every word and lay out my careful battle plan of how I was flat-out going to have to REFUSE to pay for that handling business! I had read in the fine print that they will refund your money but not the shipping and handling charges.

You know I've said this for years: if you stuff something into an envelope with bubble wrap and take it to the post office and mail it, it costs about a nickels worth of time and about 3 bucks in postage. And yet these places already charging exorbitant prices for their merchandise have the audacity to charge almost 10 bucks for 'shipping and handling'.

I really hate confrontations of this sort. You are ALWAYS WRONG if you are the customer, and there is always some little piss ant on the other end of the line and you can hear him gloating at your frustration.

However. Not this time! When I called this morning a perfectly reasonable person answered and when I told her I was calling about a defective item she was instantly VERY sorry to hear it! Oh, NOOooo! She said! I am SO SORRY that happened. We will ship you out a new item right away and you don't have to return the ruined one."

@@@Boing!!!!!@@@@ I couldn't believe it. She just simply took my name and addy again and asked for a daytime phone number just in case and said it would be sent out standard mail by the end of today.

I was so stunned and happy I went right in and baked some cornbread!