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That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
For some reason I don't think my package is actually going to arrive today. Just a hunch.




Also, I think FedEx and I have very different ideas of what "On Time" means.
the pain is real.
there's a FedEx wormhole a few hours south of Atlanta, GA that whenever a package passes near, it seems to vanish from time and space for a minimum of three days. 50/50 anything I order routes that way. if so, then it's a 100% chance for a delay. i just try to accept that Mathew McConaughey and TARS must really need whatever I'm receiving more than I do. i'm sure once they're done with their tesseract, i'll see my package pop back through, this side of Jupiter again.
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For some reason I don't think my package is actually going to arrive today. Just a hunch.




Also, I think FedEx and I have very different ideas of what "On Time" means.
i know how it feels my parcel is not arriving till 15th dec -.- ugh



For some reason I don't think my package is actually going to arrive today. Just a hunch.




Also, I think FedEx and I have very different ideas of what "On Time" means.
Guess what's still not here?
It is at least in California now. So that's something, I guess.



Cutting down trees.

I understand if a large tree is in danger of falling on a house, or its roots are damaging sewer pipes, or it's pushing up the sidewalk.

So many times I'll see a tree where maybe only a couple limbs need to be removed to cancel the potential danger of them damaging a house or interfering with wires - but the owners choose to cut the whole thing down. I don't know how many people have told me they cut down beautiful trees that were there longer than their ancestors simply because they didn't like raking leaves.

It seems like so many people in my town are obsessed with removing all trees on their property. Understandably, the obsession really ramped up after hurricanes Irene & Sandy (where trees damaged homes), but it seems to be increasing every year.

I remember sun-dappled avenues of my childhood - they were dappled because the sunlight poked through the leaves on the trees. I remember archways of branches creating natural arbors over streets & walkways, and places you could sit to shade yourself in the summer as you listened to the breeze through the leaves.

Now, those same streets look like something out of the dust bowl - barren - no trees. In the summer everything is baking hot because there's no shade.

And in case anyone thinks it's just my perception, years back there was a short power outage at my parents' house and workers were cutting down the last tree on the block (along the roadway / sidewalk anyway). A neighbor lady was cursing the tree and said, "They should cut down every single tree in town! In fact, they should just get rid of all trees everywhere!" (She obviously was not aware that trees help supply the air we breath and that the rainforests are considered the "lungs of the Earth"!)

I'm thinking about this because I just got back from my walk and passed yet another property where several (probably) centuries old trees were cut down, leaving a once rural-looking suburban area feeling like an inner-city slum.



⬆️ Interesting you say this. I am friendly with a DPW lady in town who mostly works cleaning up the parks, that kind of work. She also has to assess trees that people have called in as a potential problem. She was telling me I wouldn’t believe how many people complain about trees when there is nothing wrong with the tree & it presents no problem. She says she just ignores those requests.

I absolutely love trees. On one of my summer walks one house has two huge oak trees next to the sidewalk. On a boiling hot day I sometimes spend 5 minutes in the shade of these trees just to cool off a little. I also love the sound of the wind in the trees.
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Guess what's still not here?
It is at least in California now. So that's something, I guess.
So that package never showed up. It made it to California and then... nothing. I contacted the company that sent it about it on Wednesday. I clearly explained that there were two items in the order and that I'd already received one of the items but the other item has clearly been lost in shipping. I was very specific about which item had already come and which item had not. They said they would reship the missing item. Nothing about the reshipment ever showed up on my account, I never received an email confirmation, tracking info, nothing. So I contacted them about it again this morning. They gave me tracking info which said the replacement item was on the truck for delivery today.

Well the package came and.... THEY SENT THE WRONG ITEM. I now have two of the first item and none of the second. I called customer service and the person I spoke to was useless. I kept having to repeat my questions because she wouldn't give me any answers and wouldn't transfer me to a supervisor. I work in customer service so I try really hard to keep my cool when dealing with other CS people but this woman was infuriating. I had to ask her three times what to do with the duplicate item that they sent by mistake. She just kept ignoring the question completely.

Supposedly they are reshipping the correct item. Supposedly it will arrive by 12/15. I'm not holding my breath for that to come true.

Lesson of this experience: Don't order from Harry and David/Cheryl's Cookies/The "Celebrations" group of companies. Their customer service is awful.



The trick is not minding
This past week we have had two packages delivered to us that didn’t belong to us. We alerted Amazon and left them by the entrance. One was supposed to have been delivered to Fresno. 😳
The other was actually close. Same apartment complex, just off by 1 number. (Our address is 11539, and they meant to deliver it to 11439). No joke.

Meanwhile, there is a pile of packages down the hall that has been accruing for the past week and the owner has yet to appear. So we’re wondering what has happened there.



Herself got a parcicle from Amazon on Friday that actually contained another fully addressed parcicle inside it intended for someone else Thankfully the 'extra' one was also for someone local so she simply dropped it off to them yesterday.



Herself got a parcicle from Amazon on Friday that actually contained another fully addressed parcicle inside it intended for someone else Thankfully the 'extra' one was also for someone local so she simply dropped it off to them yesterday.
be careful of porche pirates



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
We've had several similar problems with our orders recently.

1) We ordered shipping boxes from WB Mason. There were supposed to be four bundles of boxes, (4 different sizes). We received 3 of the 4 bundles, but one of the bundles had paperwork that showed that it was the size that we did NOT receive. When we looked at the order online, the order showed that we received the paperwork size, not the size we actually received.

We called them to have it corrected, and they said that they would fix it. Five phone calls, including two calls to a supervisor, no callbacks from them, (even though three different people promised us they would contact the delivery driver and call us back), and two days later, they still had NOT fixed it, and we still had NOT received the rest of our order, even though the order showed "Out for Delivery" for two days.

We eventually called them again, and told them to just cancel the remainder of the order, and refund our payment (for what we didn't receive), and a partial shipping charge (for what we didn't receive). They said they would cancel it, and send us an email to confirm the cancellation), but the next day, (Saturday), there was still no email from them, and our order on their website showed that they marked the missing boxes as "Delivered" on Tuesday, FOUR DAYS EARLIER, and charged them our credit card.

We tried to call them AGAIN, but since they're closed on weekends, we had to send an email instead. Sunday morning, they finally refunded our payment to our credit card.

It was our first order from them, and it will be our last too.


2) We ordered several Funko Pops from Funko's website last week. When we received the order, we got everything we paid for, plus a Funko blacklight poster that we did NOT order. We contacted them, (email was the only option), to let them know that we received an extra item. It took them two days to reply, but at least they were very nice, and they thanked us for being honest, and told us to keep the poster.

At least this one ended well, and we will definitely buy from Funko again.


3) The third issue was a food delivery service, like DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc., but we did NOT order anything from any restaurants, so I don't know which service it was. Saturday night around 9PM, someone rang our doorbell. It was the food delivery. We told him it wasn't ours, but he walked away before we could ask him for the name on the order. We checked with several neighbors to try to find out who was expecting the delivery.

It turned out to be my downstairs neighbor. (Same address, but different doorbell.) The doorbells are clearly labeled with our last names. My last name is a short Jewish last name. His last name is a long Hispanic last name. How could the delivery driver have mixed them up?!
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be careful of porche pirates
Fret not - would never order a porche via the internet



i mean porch** lol the people who steals parcels not the cars lol
Yeah, we either hand parcicles to the rightful owner if they are in, drop them through the letterbox if not or drop a note and bring it back home if it won't fit,



Robo calls are becoming a huge nuisance now especially when they know something is up for renewal. When husband’s Geico insurance was up for renewal we must have gotten a dozen calls a day offering him an alternative. How do they know a policy is due for renewal? As soon as he renewed with Geico the calls stopped.

My problem now is I expect calls from people I need to talk to, but 99% of the time I answer it’s some nonsensical call. But I have to answer the phone in case it’s a call I’m waiting for. Surely the government or somebody can fix this problem? I feel my house phone has been hijacked by these predatory people.
On Friday we had a robocall (presumably the same one) every 15 minutes. Finally stopped around 9 p.m. Nobody in our house now answers the phone.

Dawned on me yesterday to silence the ringer as nobody is actually answering the phone. So I silenced the phones downstairs & upstairs & left the basement phone as it was. After 4 rings it goes into the answering machine. Should have done this a long time ago: the silence is so very pleasant.



Yeah, we either hand parcicles to the rightful owner if they are in, drop them through the letterbox if not or drop a note and bring it back home if it won't fit,
oh that good same with us they put our parcels at the post office to pick it up or put them in our secret hiding spots so people cant see them



We've had several similar problems with our orders recently.

1) We ordered shipping boxes from WB Mason. There were supposed to be four bundles of boxes, (4 different sizes). We received 3 of the 4 bundles, but one of the bundles had paperwork that showed that it was the size that we did NOT receive. When we looked at the order online, the order showed that we received the paperwork size, not the size we actually received.

We called them to have it corrected, and they said that they would fix it. Five phone calls, including two calls to a supervisor, no callbacks from them, (even though three different people promised us they would contact the delivery driver and call us back), and two days later, they still had NOT fixed it, and we still had NOT received the rest of our order, even though the order showed "Out for Delivery" for two days.

We eventually called them again, and told them to just cancel the remainder of the order, and refund our payment (for what we didn't receive), and a partial shipping charge (for what we didn't receive). They said they would cancel it, and send us an email to confirm the cancellation), but the next day, (Saturday), there was still no email from them, and our order on their website showed that they marked the missing boxes as "Delivered" on Tuesday, FOUR DAYS EARLIER, and charged them our credit card.

We tried to call them AGAIN, but since they're closed on weekends, we had to send an email instead. Sunday morning, they finally refunded our payment to our credit card.

It was our first order from them, and it will be our last too.


2) We ordered several Funko Pops from Funko's website last week. When we received the order, we got everything we paid for, plus a Funko blacklight poster that we did NOT order. We contacted them, (email was the only option), to let them know that we received an extra item. It took them two days to reply, but at least they were very nice, and they thanked us for being honest, and told us to keep the poster.

At least this one ended well, and we will definitely buy from Funko again.


3) The third issue was a food delivery service, like DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc., but we did NOT order anything from any restaurants, so I don't know which service it was. Saturday night around 9PM, someone rang our doorbell. It was the food delivery. We told him it wasn't ours, but he walked away before we could ask him for the name on the order. We checked with several neighbors to try to find out who was expecting the delivery.

It turned out to be my downstairs neighbor. (Same address, but different doorbell.) The doorbells are clearly labeled with our last names. My last name is a short Jewish last name. His last name is a long Hispanic last name. How could the delivery driver have mixed them up?!
See, this is why I almost 100% use Amazon. From the very beginning I find their customer service to be excellent. If I’ve ever had a problem, which is rare, the problem has been solved PDQ.



I wish I could go to Prime Video, NF and most other streaming services on my android streaming device and just search for films based on: Genre, decade or year or even just alphabetically. I don't need these services recommendations at all (usually crap, direct to video) and I don't really care what is popular right now. It seems like these services want it to be difficult to find something good to watch. HBO Max is the only service I have that gets this right



I wish I could go to Prime Video, NF and most other streaming services on my android streaming device and just search for films based on: Genre, decade or year or even just alphabetically. I don't need these services recommendations at all (usually crap, direct to video) and I don't really care what is popular right now. It seems like these services want it to be difficult to find something good to watch. HBO Max is the only service I have that gets this right
Prime video gives me all kinds of categories to search for. Or is it only when I am searching for DVDs to buy?



Six months after mailing fed tax return we both get an IRS letter today telling us they’re reviewing our information. If we don’t hear from them within 60 days we should call …

Unbelievable!
Still no federal tax refund. So, according to above letter, I have a telephone # I am supposed to call on January 1. Are we the only people in America who haven’t received a federal tax refund?