I didn't need my head in one piece anyway!

It's been one of those weeks, and it's only 8:45 Tuesday morning. I can't wait to see what the rest of the week brings me.

Wes's dad and kids are coming down on Friday because Wes gets back next week. Wes's dad and Victor are going to drive down to Florida, meet Wes's ship and ride back on it. It's called a Tiger cruise (Allison is too young and Wes's ship is small, so there is no female berthing). Originally, the ship was going to rent a bus for all the people going down to Florida. Well, that got cancelled, so now we're stuck trying to find a rental car. Wes wanted me to go with a particular company because they have a location on base in Florida, so then a taxi wouldn't be needed. Turns out that company doesn't do one-way rentals, only local. Fine, whatever, I'll find another company. Then Wes wanted to find the closest location to the base for the car drop off. The closest is not the airport, however, all non-airport locations close 4:00pm and unless they leave at 5:00am at the latest, they won't make it. (And I happen to know there is construction in at least 2 of the states they have to drive through.) So I just shot Wes an e-mail and I'll call his dad today to find out what they want to do. In addition, the economy car we're renting, the cheapest one I could find, is $122 for one day. We were planning on renting a mini-van for Christmas, but now I'm starting to wonder if we can afford it.

I had another ultra-sound yesterday. I will never understand this, but every time I have one, the nurse wipes my belly clean after she looks, and then goes and gets the doctor, who wants to have a look himself, so they have to goop my belly up all over again. It's still a girl!!!! And she is using my bladder as a pillow. She weighs approximately 5.7lbs. I told her she could gain 2 more lbs and that was it! Then the doctor decides he wants to do a vaginal ultrasound to make sure there aren't any blood vessels from my extra placenta over my cervix. Good times! (My ultra-conservative mom had never heard of a vaginal ultrasound so I explained it. "They take this dildo, put a condom on it and lube it up and stick it up there to get a picture." My mom: "I bet Wes was jealous when he heard that!") So the doctor's appointment wasn't bad. She's healthy, so that's all good.

But then I came home and started the saga of the missing birthday present. As you may recall, Victor has not taken his parents' divorce very well, and his mom lying about stuff hasn't helped. And he really isn't happy about the new baby (who knows what she's said about that). His birthday is in Oct. and he loves Heroscape by Hasbro. So, on Sep. 8th, 2008, I ordered the Heroscape Master set (the original) off of the Hasbro official web-site. I received an e-mail confirming the order. I paid for standard shipping, which is 8 to 10 days. I received an e-mail on Sep. 10th telling me it had shipped. Well, I realized last week that I still had not received it. I called Hasbro on Friday, Sep. 26th to ask about my order (yes, I have my order #, and at that point, it had been 13 business days since it had shipped). I talked to some guy who looked at my account and basically said, "I have no idea what this means, can I have a supervisor call you back?" Um, well, how often does a person actually try to pass you off on the supervisor? So, yes, please, have them call me back. He said I would probably receive the call on Monday. Ok, fine.

Yesterday, I get home from my doctor's appointment and I have a message from Hasbro. I call back and get a regular person. Well, it looks like something happened to your order and we're going to have to re-send it today. Ok, you're sending it priority right? No, you paid for standard. Yes, I did pay for standard, over 3 weeks ago. Let me speak to your supervisor.

Floor supervisor. Well, it looks like the game was sent back to us. From who and why? I don't know. But our web-site says that in cases like that, it can take up to 21 business days. No, the web-site says 8 to 10 business days. Yes, it does say 8 to 10 business days, unless it's sent back. I didn't send it back. You use Fed-ex, can't you call them and find out where the game is. No, we can't, but I can give that number to you. The game was re-shipped on Friday the 26th (notice the first guy told me it was going to be re-shipped, but hadn't yet). She gives me the Fed-ex tracking number and then tries to get me off the phone. Ok then, if you need anything else after talking to Fed-ex, call us back. Oh, I'm not hanging up. I go to the Fed-ex site and plug in the number, they don't have that number in their system. Do you really think this is good customer service, I ask her? Well, there is a chance that the first package might still be delivered to you. Wait, now I'm really confused, you just told me it had been returned. Now you're telling me that you don't actually know where it is? Let me speak to your supervisor.

I get Brian. He is very nice and polite and obviously doesn't have his head stuck up his ass like some other people who think I'm stupid. I explain the situation to him, including that my husband's been deployed and it's his son's birthday, yadda, yadda, yadda. But I also point out that since this is clearly an error on their part, it would be good customer service to expedite the shipping of the game. Also, since they obviously have my e-mail address, when were they going to let me know what was going on? He is very nice and asks if he can do some research and call me back. I had to pee by this point, so I say yes, not expecting to hear from him again.

He called back in less than a half hour! He didn't know anything. He said they have 9 distribution centers, so he would try to find out where it was going out from and call them to have them send it priority. He also said he would try to find out what happened to the first game, as it might be quicker to get that one to me. He said he would call me back today to let me know what he had found out. I asked him if the call center worked for Hasbro directly, or if they were out-sourced (and not out of country: they were clearly in this country). They are indeed outsourced.

Ok, I get an e-mail this morning telling me my game has shipped. Let's see if Brian calls me back and what happens. As it stands, if they send it standard again, we probably wouldn't get it until 2 days before the kids leave. Wes wants me to contact Hasbro directly if this is not resolved. However, I think I will probably have to order another game from Amazon.com instead, pay extra for the speedy delivery and then deal with Hasbro, trying to get them to reimburse us for all this mess.

Wes had one last thing to say about it: don't stress out about this. It'll be ok. But make sure the game gets there in time.

*****Update*****
I just received a call from Brian's supervisor, named Ramey(?). First, if you're going to call a customer, read all the notes before you get on the phone with them. Second, once on the phone, don't ask the customer if they have been contacted yet about the situation (see above about reading the notes). Third, why are you calling me just to tell me that Brian still doesn't know what's going on, but will contact me later? I'll just wait for his call, thank you.