For our daughter in law's birthday, Linda bought her a mirror; not just any old mirror; it was a fancy one, the kind people put decoratively on a living room wall. Since it's not the kind of thing Linda would have ordinarily chosen, I'm guessing it's something they had discussed beforehand. Apparently not enough, because it needed to be returned. In the old days, this was a rather simple matter; you packed up the item, drove to the store, and if the store was reputable, they took it back, no questions asked. Linda however, has been dragged, kicking and screaming into the digital age, and ordered this from Amazon, which had delivered it via UPS.
She placed the mirror in our entry room, along with the return authorization slip, and waited for UPS to come pick it up. And waited. And waited. Finally, she called them and was told that it had been picked up and delivered back to Amazon. "Well, that's funny," she replied, "because it's still sitting in our entry room." The woman at UPS didn't believe her, because they had the paperwork that said it had been picked up. At that point, we weren't quite sure what to do about the mirror that still sat in our entry room, but as chapter one closes and chapter two begins, things start to get interesting.
Our great-nephew Ben lives in Ohio, and has played bass for a number of years. A couple weeks ago, he posted on Facebook that he was selling his bass. I was somewhat distraught, since good bass players are hard to come by, and we have to stick together. I responded, and he wrote back, assuring me that all he was doing was upgrading. I had been interested in his old bass, not for myself, but as a loaner to the kids at our church's School of the Arts (SOTA), where we are teaching guitar, keyboard, bass, drums, dance, and drama, as a way of raising up young worship leaders. I had been asked to teach bass, which is rather amusing, given my level of ineptitude. But "as long as you're one step ahead of those you are teaching, you can do it," is my motto. The bass Ben was selling was a bit rich for me to buy just to give to the church, but he had another that needed a slight bit of work to the electronics that he was willing to give me. I told him I wouldn't accept it unless we could pay something for it, and he agreed, sending it here with his grandmother when she returned from her last visit there.
It came in a cardboard box. I opened it, checked it out, then put it back in the box. A couple days ago, I decided to take it to the shop for repairs, but hunted the house and garage high and low, without finding it. Where could I have put it? Though I distinctly remember bringing it home, I even checked the church, to no avail.
The other day, Linda was back on the phone with UPS, arguing with them over the mirror they claimed they picked up, but was still sitting in our entry room, when the lady on the other end of the line asked if we were missing anything. The lights went on. They picked up the bass, in an unmarked, opened box, with no return slip, and leaving no receipt! Worse yet, they refused to take responsibility for it, refused to try to track it down, claiming that this sort of thing happens all the time. Linda called Amazon. The young woman on the other end had never heard of such a thing happening, but is doing everything she can to track it down. We don't yet know where it is, other than it was delivered to the warehouse in Kentucky. But what would they do with a used bass?
We finally sent the mirror back, but are still in limbo regarding the bass. Whether UPS will take responsibility or not is as they say, "up in the air," but if our experience so far is typical, I'm not holding my breath.
All this came tumbling down in a week with two funerals, a furnace that quit, freezing our pipes, and a truck that decided it didn't need four-wheel drive anymore. Even for this rather ordinary guy, life can get interesting. But it isn't tragic. I'm not burying a child, mourning a brother beheaded by ISIS, or dealing with a wife leaving me. I am so very blessed that I can look at this and laugh. Who would have guessed that a bass could be mistaken for a mirror, and that all the fancy computerized systems couldn't catch such a mistake? Oh well, stuff happens, and I am writing this sitting in my chair by a warm fire and a snoring dog. I am a grateful man.
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