crap

So much for being so very clever - not.

I brought fuzzy-butt, aka Angus, with me on the trip to the conference in Washington D.C., and he has been brilliant company and verrry well behaved I must say - I used 68% of my luggage space (and paid the HUGE amount of money that Continental charged me for checking a single bag AND having it two bloody ounces over whatever alien weight limit they are using) to pack his food (wet and dry), toys, tent, harness, health papers, leash (oh stop laughing), sleeping fuzzy, and litter scoop and pans with enough litter to get us through the plane trip and a day or so.

Thinking I was being so clever - I ordered, from Petco, the wicked bad people (them, not you), a bag of his litter, World's Best Cat Litter, which it really is - to be delivered to the hotel rather than add even more weight to my bag, to get us through the rest of the trip and the flight home. Clever eh? I thought so.

Today, I received an email saying, "Oops, we don't have any." They may have said "backordered" but it means the same thing. When I called them explaining that in addition to the cost of the litter, I had also paid for overnight delivery, and would be gone now before the litter arrived; the nice boy explained that apparently "we don't have it" or "backordered" can also mean - "We don't have it here, so we are sending it from somewhere else and it will be late, but we will charge you the same amount for shipping.

After carefully explaining my situation (being here not there and the hotel not having a lot of use for cat litter, even exceptional cat litter, and therefore are unlikely to take the cost off my bill and keep the litter in exchange; I was told, "Oh no worries we can have it there by Tuesday."

"Tuesday?"

"Yes," in a voice that said "isn't that grand?"

I explained I'm going back to Texas on SUNDAY and the aforementioned hotel will have the aforementioned no use for the litter! I will be out the cost of shipping and litter and still have no place for Angus to um… well ..uh…expel his waste (whew).

Nathan, the nice boy, said he would “try” to have FedEx reroute it to my house in Texas.

“But”, said I, “if they haven’t shipped it yet, which apparently (duh) they haven’t, why can’t you cancel the order.”

“I don’t know. Well I will try to have them ship it to your house in Texas because I can’t cancel it because it is being shipped.”

“But Nathan, it’s not being shipped – yet; remember that was why Petco sent me the email to tell me it was coming late.”

“The computer won’t let me.”

Ah, that certainly explains everything. Even worse, I couldn’t yell or be upset because he was such a nice young boy and it really isn’t his fault – he’s not running the company or making policy. But whoever you are out there – you persons who are running the company and making policy – consider yourselves yelled at with extreme prejudice.

Oh but did I mention what a posh room I have at the Omni Hotel where I managed such a great deal through Travelocity along with the airline ticket on the terrible flight from hell? Did I not tell you about the flight? Oh that’s right, you will have to read about it over at Powder Room Graffiti as soon as I can get it over to Drunken Mummy. I was really pissed which was great as I hammered out a 700 word article while still on the plane – you have time for that when a three hour flight turns into a six hour flight and you are stuck in a seat that won’t recline and you aren’t allowed up because… – umm hmmmm.

I’m very tired now. I must rest.

Ciao