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Wednesday, July 11, 2012

7-11

Today is my birthday.  It is also Free Slurpee day.  I joked with Chris that I expected him to deliver a Slurpee to my office since it was my birthday and Free Slurpee day.  And since it's my birthday, I should get what I want, right? He did not agree.  Of course I know the reason why and that's because we tried to get a free Slurpee on my birthday last year.  I'm surprised I haven't told this story on here before.  I even went back to my archives to check so I didn't repeat myself but I guess I was so wrapped up in being pregnant that all other stories went out the window.  So here it goes.

This time last year I was 9 months pregnant, 15 days away from my due date, in the middle of the hottest summer ever in Austin, Texas.  I had not yet diagnosed pre-eclampsia. I was basically miserable.  I told Chris that all I wanted for my birthday was tickets to see the final Harry Potter movie and a free Slurpee on my birthday.  So he picked me up from work that afternoon since he was in training near my office and we drove to the 7-Eleven closest to our house.  Now this is not the nicest 7-Eleven I've ever been in but it's not in the ghetto either so I was surprised at the clientele of the establishment.  I guess it goes back to people going nuts over anything that's free.

We walk in to hear the store's owner tell a customer they no longer had free Slurpees.  Apparently 7-Eleven corporate had sent special cups to the stores to use for the free Slurpees so they were on a first come, first serve basis.  Once those cups were gone, the individual stores could decide if they want to continue to serve the free Slurpee in the regular cups or discontinue the promotion.  This, however, was not advertised by 7-Eleven corporate and there were a lot of angry people who were not able to get their free Slurpees.  Well, this was also the case in our 7-Eleven.  One man actually fixed a Slurpee and walked out the door with it because he was determined he would get his Slurpee for free.

There was one woman however who was furious.  She had arrived at the 7-Eleven with her whole family in tow and she was raising a stink because they weren't giving out free Slurpees anymore.  She was convinced that "only the white people were getting the free drinks."  I guess I should mention that the store owner was Indian so I found this thought amusing.  And then she sees Chris, standing there in his Sheriff uniform.  Her comment went something like this, "OH...I bet the cop gets whatever he wants."  Well, all this is going on while I'm fixing my Dr Pepper Slurpee because I was going to pay the $2.00 for my Slurpee since we were there and I was pregnant and miserable and it was my birthday.  (That ended up being the only thing I had that night because I was too sick to eat by that point.)  Chris tried to tell me to get a larger one since the small Slurpees had been the free ones in the first place.  I didn't want a large one but I understood why when we got outside. 

The crazy woman was still in the parking lot and she was pissed when she saw me with my Slurpee.  She had left before we paid for the drink for me and sandwiches for Chris so she believed I had received one of the elusive free Slurpees.  She started yelling out her car window at us.  Needless to say, we got out of there pretty quick after that.  So when I saw 7-Eleven advertising their Free Slurpee Day this year, I knew there was no way we would try to get a Slurpee today.  Any other day but today.  I should also mention that the Slurpee wasn't even that good.  It was kind of watery and gross I guess because the machines had been over worked that day.  All in all, it just made me sad.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

On a Quest for a Cake Pan

Jackson turns one in 16 days.  I have been in the throws of party planning for a couple of months now.  I rted down one path with the party theme but changed my mind about half way through after seeing how Jackson reacted to the characters on Veggie Tales.  So instead of "The New Sheriff in Town" theme I started out with, we are going for a Veggie Tales theme.  I got lucky because I found a lot of the decorations on the Veggie Tales website and they were on sale at the time.  But I have been struggling with coming up with the perfect cake.  My internet searches uncovered a lot of ugly Veggie Tales cakes.  You would be surprised how bad people can make a cucumber and a tomato look.  And then I found it!  Wilton makes a Larry and Bob cake pan that comes with instructions on how to decorate it.  Perfect!

VeggieTales Cake Pan
Or so you would think.  The pan is discontinued.  So I started a quest to find this cake pan.  I found it on eBay right of the bat but the person started the bidding at $40 with a buy it now of $60.  I don't think so.  Not for a cake pan that originally sold for $10.98.  I kept checking back with eBay every few days and suddenly there were 4 cake pans up for bid in the price range I was willing to pay.  So I started bidding and won one.  The listing said I was supposed to have the pan by June 20th.  Well, the 20th came and went and the seller still hadn't marked the item as shipped even though I pay for my listing as soon as I won it.

So I sent a message to the seller and received no response.  I waited a few days and sent another message.  Still no response.  But the next day I received a Paypal shipping notice.  Great, I thought. I got my message across.  So I waited for the package to show up and kept my eye on the tracking.  I wanted my cake pan. Well, the tracking showed the package had been delivered on Thursday but we didn't have a key in our mailbox for the package box so I could get my cake pan nor had it been left at our house.  (We have community mailboxes that are about the size of a post office box so large packages are left in the big box with a key for the recipient in your small box.)  Friday came and still no package.  So I called the post office, provided the tracking information, and was told they would look into it.

I guess I should mention that during this same time I received the shirt I had ordered from etsy for Jackson to wear for his party.

Monday came and still no package nor were we getting any information from the post office.  So Chris went to the post office on Tuesday and spoke to the supervisor.  They said they would open an investigation into the location of our package.  The interesting thing is that the key had been missing from the package box on our street since Thursday so I just knew our package was in there and the key had been put into the box for the empty house next door.  But the carrier said that the package was for another house not for us.  So I went back to my tracking email to see if I could figure anything else out.  And there up in the right corner of the email in small print was a link to the transaction id.  I clicked it and at that moment realized I had been an idiot.  The tracking information I had was for the shirt not for the cake pan.  

So back to eBay I went to figure out what to do about my missing cake pan that I had pay for 3 weeks ago. I now have a case opened with eBay.  I still want the pan because I really want that to be Jackson's cake but I don't think I'm going to get it.  I'm guessing I will get my money back once the week passes and I don't hear anything from the seller.  I checked the feedback on this particular seller and it turns out that, despite a 100% positive rating, there are several comments about her shipping late and she currently doesn't have any other items listed on the site.  Looks like this is e recurring problem with this particular seller and taught me to read the feedback closer before I purchase from someone.