BUT FIRST - SOME RED HOT ANGER

So, homecoming is over.

The football game has been won. The dance has been danced. The parade has been paraded.

And I'll get to all that soon, but right now I'm so mad I think I might have a stroke.


It all started when the float skirt didn't arrive.

Well, it actually did arrive.

When I got home from the parade.

The sneaky little float people, however, seemed to have removed the return address from the UPS shipping label; probably hoping that I would open the box and therefore be unable to return to sender. But we (my husband and I) went online to the UPS website and found the tracking number of this package and determined that yes indeed it was the float skirt which we no longer needed.

We also found out that the package was originally sent at approximately 7:09 P.M. - or about 3 hours AFTER my final phone call to the company. About three hours AFTER the man said it was on its way and that he would have to get back to me with a tracking number.

LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE!!!

Now I know this is probably circumstantial evidence, but it looks as though they not only lied about the package being sent when it actually wasn't; but they also went to the trouble of slicing off the return address so I would open the box or at least have trouble sending it back.

I wrote REFUSED in big black letters on the package, and Paul took it to work on Monday hoping to send it with the UPS man when he made his daily stop at Paul's office. We assumed last night that the package was on its way back to the den of thieves from which it came.

WRONG.

Imagine my surprise...actually my red hot anger...when my doorbell rang today and I saw the UPS truck parked in front of our house. Imagine my surprise...actually my red hot anger...when I opened the door and found the package sitting there again. This package that will not die. This package for which our credit card is going to be billed eighty dollars if I cannot get it back to the big fat liars.

By now I am doing Lamaze breathing to keep from breaking a blood vessel in my brain. I called our local UPS office who were helpful enough to give me an 800 number to call so I could ask how to return a package. I still am not sure why the local UPS people couldn't answer my question but I will ponder that when I'm finished with my stroke.

Of course the 800 number is managed by a robot, who gave me four options; none of which was "how to return a package."

I kept pushing zero-zero, like the local UPS lady said to do. But I just kept getting the same robot who kept giving me the same options. I tried lying to the robot and choosing one of the options, hoping to get an actual person. But the lies only led me to more robots.

So here I sit with a package of silver fringed float skirting and a twitching eye.

Here is my plan of attack.

Tomorrow I am going to call the local UPS office and plead with them to help me. I am going to ask them a simple question: "Could you please tell me how to return this package? The 800 number is not helpful. PLEASE, IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY, HELP ME!!" I will drive to the office if necessary.

And if that doesn't work, I'm going to go to the post office and ask them about sending a package COD.

And if THAT doesn't work, I'm going to make a road trip to CRS ENTERPRISES float supply company somewhere in Minnesota and politely shove it up...onto their counter and demand a refund.