I've been in a not so great mood the last several days due to everything that seems to be able to go wrong or break has. It is Murphy's law, you know? Anyways, the stress in our lives seems to just be climbing and building as things in our lives break down. First it was our Jeep, then our telephones, then, my computer router,and the last straw, my kitchen mop! To vent some my frustration, I began cleaning! I mean really cleaning! I started by cleaning up the creative chaos that I left on the rear kitchen table after creating Alexxis's banner. I had scraps of paper, fabric, rick rack, and glitter everywhere. {Yes, even on my granddaughter, LOL! }
So I set the day aside to do some deep cleaning of the entire house, right down to mopping the kitchen floor on my hands and knees while running to answer the old landline telephone located at the opposite end of the house! During a recent severe thunderstorm earlier in the week, our electric power was out for a few hours in the wee hours of the morning. Once the power was restored to our area, our telephones wouldn't work. They had been acting a bit funky prior to the storm, so Don decided to try a new battery in the base before considering them totally fried. Since the power was restored, we attempted to charge a new telephone battery. To make a long story short, that didn't work as we quickly realized the cause was an electrical surge so all we were really without was the time it took to wait for the battery to actually charge and our money. I cannot tell you how many times we've went through this in the past several years, so I am really frustrated now, more at myself , that the incident itself.
Why the hell do we pay out good money for the telephones yet won't invest in a $7 surge protector to plug them into? Everything else in our home are on surge protectors but the cordless phones??? Hell bent not to allow this happen again, surge protectors are on our "to purchase lists" right along with new phones. So, I hooked up the old landline telephone on the only telephone jack in our home, located in our bedroom at the opposite end of our home and ran to answer it for the last several days before the message center picks up the calls on the fourth ring. As this continues, my frustration level continued to rise right along with it.
I couldn't get online at all for a span of about 48 hours. We'd paid the bill, then received a telephone call regarding it from a customer service department located somewhere. We had to inform them the bill had been paid! Then, my computer acted up. Don made a trip to our local cable internet company, who checked the line, said was working........while another customer complained of the same problem in the other line. Anyways, he returned home to tell me and I checked every wire going from the router to the modem to the computer. I could have sworn one wire from the computer to the router contained a short in it. So, Don took it to a computer store, where it was checked and determined to be fine. He brought it back, I reconnected it and finally was able to get online. Whatever the problem was......... it seemed to resolve itself and left me totally dazed and confused.
The last straw was when my recently purchased floor mop had also broken and I was in desparate need of a new sponge mop head. Believing that I could fix the floor mop as I reassembled it using a new sponge mop head we set out on Wednesday evening, to return a telephone battery to WalMart. Anyways, while Don waited in line to return the unnecessary battery, I went back to the broom and mop area of grocery and was ticked instantly!!! How can you buy a mop and a mop sponge replacement two months before and return to discover that don't stock these anymore?
Feeling really frustrated now, I thought, I'll be damned if I am going to purchase another mop from them or cordless telephones for that matter. So, after receiving a store credit for the cordless battery, which at this point, I've no desire to use on anything from them besides groceries only because I'm not throwing $25.00 away, we head out!!!
I get so frustrated with WalMart easily anymore. Their companies policies leave a lot for me to desire and this isn't the first time we've had to return items to them. Hell, if I had only known that the mop would break, they would have gotten it back, too. Their made in the U.S. policy has went out the window in recent years and there is all this imported from China products that they either refuse to restock or stand behind, so now I am truly ticked at them and will spend our hard-earned $$$ elsewhere...... anywhere else!!!
So, we head to Lowes. Into Lowes we go, inquirying at their so-called "customer service" desk as to where they would be located and told aisle 11. Upon arriving in aisle 11, do you think there are telephones there? Nope. Telephone accessories! Another mistake. I am totally fed up at this point, so we leave.
We head to Meijer's, back to the Photo and Electronic department where we find some cordless telephones we like and place them in the shopping cart. We search for another 10 minutes for surge protectors...... surge protectors = electronics, get it? So we search, and search some more, before finally giving in and go disturb the one lone employee who is swamped with a line of 15 people desiring one hour services on their 4th of July photographs. She's puzzled, so therefore calls another department, who takes another 10 minutes to ring her back to inform her that the surge protectors are in the aisle with the ceiling fans. {{{{What ????? the hell????? Okay, we'd have guessed that all by ourselves!}}}}
After walking another mile {ok,it wasn't really a mile, but when you're frustrated, it totally seems like one} through the store, we locate them, make our selections, toss them into the cart.
Then, I get this bright idea to go to lawn and garden outside to see if there are any flowers on sale. I get two bags of potting soil and 6 pots of petunias, somehow reading a sign that says 3/$1. We head back inside to check out, everything goes smooth, we get to the truck and I ask for the receipt thinking did we really just spend that much $$$? Looking at the receipt, I see the 6 pots of petunias rang up at 3/$10; My God!!!! that is $20 for these crappy looking flowers to plant after the 4th of July? No way!
So, I head to lawn and garden, check the sign, and sure enough, two signs have been switched and the price is now correct. Now, I don't want them so I head to the truck, get the 6 pots of petunias and the potting soil I now won't be needing, head back to the cashier who is outside to return them. He has to call a supervisor to authorize the damn return! She arrives and cannot do the return on his register, so inside to customer service we head, to arrive to discover after our arrival and many failed attempts the computers are up and down, and up and down. A half an hour later, I kid you not, I finally get my $$$ back after two transactions --- one for the petunias and the other for the potting soil. Why it took two is beyond me as it was all on the one receipt but okay! It's finally over.
We return home and I take the telephones out of the box, plug in the surge protectors, Hey! I'm not taking any chances of something else going wrong while we wait yet another day for them to charge.
While waiting, I am totally worn out from all the recent cleaning and running to answer the forever ringing telephone. We head out for a ride --- just to get away from it all. We ended up in Columbus at a Target store to purchase a new mop! LOL! Anyways, I couln't get over the differences in the stores we'd recently went into. At Target, we were greeted with a cheery "hello!" from a girl at the customer service desk. Another employee walked by with returns in her arms, yet asked if there was something she could help us with. She pointed us in the right direction after offering to take us to the broom and mop aisle of housewares. Target will definately be receiving more of our business!
Deciding yesterday that I really need to get my stress level under control, I did nothing but sit and read. I read an entire Danielle Steele novel... and today, I've not much energy either. All the recently cleaning, stressing, and running for the telephone has definately ran me down... but hey! our new telephones work!!!! and Me, I'm simply trying to take it easy!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment