It's Not Perfect in Shafferland

Okay so here's the thing.

You know how it can be on all things social media. The complaining, the eternal verbal vomit, the dumping ground of emotions - all the things that make your roll your eyes and click NEXT!!!!!! I try so hard to make sure my Facebook page, my Instagram, my Twitter feed, and my blog stay free of that kind of drama. I don't want any of them to be places where people fear they may be reading another bitter diatribe. I want my world wide web spaces to be a mix of encouraging and funny and challenging, but never mean.

But I fear that in my quest to do that, some of you may have the {entirely false} understanding that things are rosy all the time in Shafferland. That we never get irritated, that we're super-people who do it all, all the time, with a smile.

Uh, no.

We get grumpy and cranky, just like everyone else. We have days that are not our finest and moments we are not proud of, and we go through our own set of injustices, irritants, and frustrations just like everyone else.

Enter today's story. I'm sharing it not to be ugly, but just because it got so flat out ridiculous, it must be told. {For our own Shafferland chronicle preservation, if nothing else.} So grab some coffee and sit right back.

Back in early March, Ryan ordered a package from ebay, which is not unusual for him...he's purchased from there many times. It so happened {much to my current chagrin} that while it was in transit to us, I went to the Post Office and updated our address so we could start getting mail at our new house. I was so excited that day; I'd never changed my address before, and I even documented the trip!

It took longer than we thought it should to start getting mail at our new house - and one of the things we were waiting for most urgently was this ebay package. Finally, when I thought enough time had passed, I went to the Post Office in Kokomo to ask for help. They told me it can take up to two weeks to start seeing mail again {no one mentioned that} and I needed to wait. That was fine, so we waited, and actually a couple of days later, mail started showing up.

We got all kinds of mail, including packages, but not the ebay package.

So Ryan got on ebay to check the status of the order and found out the package had been delivered to Marion and then returned to the sender instead of being forwarded to us, and we could not even contact the seller because in the meantime, the seller canceled her ebay account.

So Ryan opened a claim with ebay to at least get our money back, since we couldn't communicate with the seller or even leave a review stating what had happened, and days went by before we finally got a response from ebay.

They ruled in favor of the seller, stating we had an insufficient address and the package was therefore undeliverable. Our fault. End of story.

{I'm actually not sure how having TWO addresses is insufficient. Shouldn't that be classified as SUPERsufficient?}

I called ebay to try to get to the bottom of it, but of course they couldn't talk to me because I'm not Ryan. So I interrupted his project for him to give them permission, and I explained to the nice man on the phone that we did not have an insufficient address...we had taken every step to leave a forwarding address, and other packages got to us just fine, so why didn't that one? He said it was an issue with the Post Office, so I should take it up with them.

And you can know I did.

I called and they needed a tracking number, which of course was no longer on the ebay website because all the information regarding the purchase had been deleted along with Mrs. Seller's account. Ryan managed to find an old email with the shipping tracking number {YAY for email hoarding!!} and I called the Post Office back.

I got a very nice lady who took a long time researching it and even included a supervisor in the discussion, and eventually she told me that the seller had mailed the package in such a way that it required a return to sender rather than a forward in the event of a move. We would have to contact her to get it back, the Post Office said.

Yeah. Got that. Except SHE CLOSED HER ACCOUNT, REMEMBER???

So I called ebay back and unfortunately that time, I did not get a kind gentleman who oozed understanding. I got Mr. Impatient who wanted to interrupt my every sentence, and even went so far as to say rather sarcastically, "So you're telling me this woman knew you were going to move and did something just to get her package back?"

How in the WORLD did you get THAT out of my story? Of course she didn't know.

Mr. Impatient continued his rudeness and insults until finally he said he couldn't talk to me anymore because I wasn't the account holder {little late for that??} so I shoved the phone in Ryan's hand, gave him the "talk to the hand" and went in another room to count to ten about a hundred times.

At the end of that call {Mr. Impatient continued his loveliness with Ryan}, we were told we would have to get a letter from the USPS stating the package was marked returned to sender if we had any hope of getting our money back.

So the next day {because it was about 9 p.m. by that time} I called the USPS as soon as they opened and told my whole story AGAIN, and the lady said, "Oh we don't write letters here."

WHAT?? You're the Post Office! You know. CARRIER OF LETTERS.

She did give me another number to call, which I did, and I found out the entire menu of options only goes to voicemail, so I started calling back every hour and punching the next number on the menu, leaving the same message in every voicemail down the line.  

MERCIFULLY, because I think the Lord knew I was at the end of my pitiful mental rope, my kind-as-I-could-make it quip on Facebook about the debacle caught the attention of one of Ryan's co-workers. She asked him what was going on, and another co-worker overheard, and she had a connection at the local post office.

We have lift-off, people!!!!!

Her connection at the Marion post office was able to find a scan of our package when it arrived, and while it's dark and grainy, you can see where the package is marked return service requested. He faxed the scan to the Kokomo post office and I went to pick it up from the NICEST gentlemen I had encountered in this entire debacle. He was so sweet and I found out later he actually listens to WBCL and remembered me! Small world, and fun story!

So...we don't have a resolution yet, and I am thoroughly exhausted. Part of this exhaustion could be because in addition to the aforementioned adventure, I also spend every other day on the phone with our cable company, because every other morning when we wake up, the service is out, and we have to call and go through the menus and all the tests and wait 24 hours for a technician to come out and fix it so we can have cable for one more day before we start over. In six days, I met three separate technicians.

Ryan may be the one in our family who wanted to be a fire-fighter, but I'm pretty sure I'm the one who ended up with the job...this week, anyway!