Short Diversion

What I'm reading: The CEO's Scandalous Affair by Roxanne St. Claire (hey, it rhymes, doesn't it?)

What I'm working on: Same stuff, different day.


I don't normally check out videos, especially ones longer than a minute, but a good friend sent this, and I was lucky enough to have 5 minutes of uninterrupted Internet connection. If you haven't seen Mrs. Hughes, check it out. It's a hoot. It was a most timely diversion after my morning.

My Internet access has been totally unreliable for the past few days, and until the cable guy shows up tomorrow, I can't trust it. So, rather than post and lose the connection (the way it did when I was in the middle of a credit card transaction for a postage shipping label, which meant I printed the label, stuck it on the priority package, drove to the Post Office, dropped it off, came home, checked email and found a message from the postal service saying my order had been canceled. Apparently the Internet did its Bleem-out between printing and approving. I sent an email to their customer service address as instructed on the email, but it appeared to be one of those, 'we'll get to these comments in due time' kind of forms to fill out, so I decided to call the clerk who'd waited on me. After all, I'm in there all the time, and she likes my books.

You know how hard it is to find a post office phone number in the phone book? Once you do, it's a master number for the entire system, and you go through countless 'press one for this, two for that' steps before you can get the number of your own branch. Which rings interminably once you do get it. Then the clerk says, 'well, just print another label and bring it down.' Which you can't do because that means getting on line, and your cable is out again. So you drive back to the post office and the line is very long this time. And the clerk you left the package with isn't at the counter.

Now for the 'bright side'. The clerk was only getting change, not out to lunch, and she let me 'cut' the line since technically, I was a continuing transaction. She punches stuff into the computer, charges my credit card and tells me it's the same transaction, same tracking number. I remember to take my receipt and go home.

Where there's another email, this one a response to my query (shock of shocks) saying, 'sorry, we can't re-charge your card, you'll get a postage due notice. Then, an hour later, I get a confirmation that my card has been charged, only the label and tracking numbers are different from the ones on my original. At least we're only talking about $4.60, and I'll watch my credit card charges and see how many times I paid to mail those books to Colorado. AmEx should be easier to deal with than the USPS.