Story time.
We have been doing some fixing up around the house lately. After living here a year it was time to paint a couple of rooms and update some of our decor. I’ve been wanting new end tables in the living room for months, but couldn’t find any I really loved. I finally found this end table online at Target, and I knew I had to have it.
I waited impatiently for it to arrive. A few days later I received an email saying it had been delivered. I opened my front door, and there was no package to be found. Confused, I checked the email again, and then I saw it. The end table had been delivered to our last address. You know, the house we moved out of a year ago?
How did this happen? I have ordered stuff from Target since we moved. A LOT of stuff (just ask my husband). Somehow our old address was still on my account, and somehow it had been selected as the default shipping address.
My long-suffering husband went to the old house and knocked on the door. There were cars in the driveway, but no one answered. I crossed my fingers that they would contact Target, or even just talk to our old neighbor who would gladly bring it over. But after a week of radio silence I resigned myself to the fact that I had made a dumb mistake. A $99 mistake.
Friday night I got a call from a local number I didn’t recognize. I hesitated to answer because those local numbers I don’t recognize are ALWAYS a robot woman named Cindy calling to tell me I have won a cruise. I listened to my sixth sense and answered anyway. It was the manager of the Fed Ex store. Someone had brought in a box with my name on it, and did I want to come pick it up before they shipped it back to Target? He told me to bring my ID and tracking number and he would hold it for me.
Fast forward to the next day. My husband and I drove the 20 minutes across town to the Fed Ex store. A lone woman was working in the store, and we explained the situation to her. She looked confused, but shuffled a couple of packages behind the desk anyway. “Nope, we don’t have it here.” I explained again that someone from THAT store had called me, so it had to be there, but she said that wasn’t their number and referred us to the 1-800 number.
I went out to my car and called the 1-800 number. They informed me the package was waiting to be picked up at the wrong address and had never made it to a store. I asked why someone from Fed Ex called me and said it was at the store then, and that’s when I got the, “Ma’am, if you would just listen, I am telling you where it is.” Click.
I went back in the Fed Ex store one more time. My husband stayed in the car, claiming he did not want me to embarrass him. Amateur. I explained the situation to the girl one more time, and proceeded to call back the number that had called me and informed me the package was their in the first place. When their store phone started ringing she agreed to look again. Turns out the box had been sitting right beside the counter the entire time. She handed it over, and the adventure of the end table quest was over.
I like the end table. And even if I didn’t, I like my husband too much to risk ever saying the word end table in his presence again.
We also got a new chair this week, and the box not fitting through the front door was the only drama that ensued. Home decor is not for the faint of heart.
