Giving and Receivering

Both of the avid readers of my blog may remember back in March that I ordered a stereo receiver online to compliment my new Blu Ray player. I wound up returning it to my local WALMART store because I found the sound issue I was having (and thus the reason for the new receiver) was actually a setting on the Blu Ray player. When I changed that, all was good (and has been ever since). Well, this past Thursday, Ashleigh called me and asked why the receiver was back on the front porch. Sure enough. They hadn't sent me another one, they sent me the SAME one! I tracked it through FedEx and saw that it sat for about a month in limbo after I returned it before someone sent it back to me. I also checked to be sure I wasn't charged again. It is a super nice receiver and I would love to keep it but I already got my cash back and it wouldn't be right to just keep it. So I emailed WALMART and told them what had happened and asked how I should proceed. About 48 hours later I got a call and an email from WALMART pretty much saying that THEY had discovered a mistake and had sent me a duplicate item. I could print out a label and bring the receiver to the Post Office to mail it back to them. Uh, wait a second. I am the one who found the error and I shouldn't be expected to print labels and lug the thing to the Post Office and stand around to ship it back. And I told them so. Clearly it was an automated response from them but that is the problem with some of these companies. They have lost the human touch. (Not the one I work for though!) Someone found a pigeonhole close enough to match my situation, plugged me in, and out came an automated response about returning a duplicate item. Which is not the case. They don't sell this item any more and had I not been honest and alerted them to the problem, they would have, and probably have, written it off. In the back of my mind I am hoping they just let me keep it but at the very least I would like a tiny bit of appreciation for making the initial effort. So I told them I was putting it back on my porch where I found it and they can come get it...

You may ask why I put WALMART in all caps here a few times. One time I wrote about my cable provider in this blog and shortly after posting it, I received a call from their customer service rep offering to help me. Apparently they scan the 'Net looking for comments. Maybe WALMART will do the same.

Meanwhile, we have had some really warm days the past few days. I power-washed the house, car and driveway yesterday. Mocha jumped in her little Tugboat Tuggy pool and had a great time. Then Lucie and I went to Elliott's lacrosse game and did our parental obligation of working the concession stand. His team is struggling but he plays well and I have to give him credit for sticking it out and taking the hits that he does. Ashleigh won her game the other day. She is now playing defense but managed to score the first goal of the game!

Lucie brought her Kids Church program into the main sanctuary for her annual opportunity during the morning service last week. That went over well. Pretty funny to see the adults doing all of the hand motions and jumping around during the songs.

I got my replacement router and that is working fine. I have a security setting where I only allow certain computers and devices on my network regardless of if they know the password or not. So I was setting it up (it was a slightly different model so I couldn't just load the settings from my old one) and entered the unique identifier information from one of the Tivos first. As soon as I hit "apply" to only allow that device, I locked myself out of my own network! (I forgot to add the computer I was on first!). Had to reset it to factory defaults and start all over. But all is fine now.

Elliott's birthday is tomorrow but due to games, we won't be able to go out for the traditional dinner till about 9 at night. So we are going early today (he wants to go to the Olive Garden).