Newsletter chitchat - October 29, 2024

[Cassel]

Did you ever order something and it took forever to receive?

Or a repair that took much much longer than it should?

Did any delay come with a funny story?

Let's share. We might get a few giggles along the way.

[Peggy Dyar]

When I went to the dealer to get a backup key, like yours, mine cost $250 USD AND it took them 1 1/2 hours to make. crazy

[Susan Ewart]

I don't know why.  but it seems like if I think something is going to take no time at all, it seems to take forever and I have all kinds of challenges that pop up.  My hubby and I were just talking about that.  He had something he was going to be doing and it wouldn't take any time at all he said.  And I reminded him that when you say that, you know what happens, it goes south and takes 4x as long.   in 2020, My hubby got new glasses, they were supposed to have the coating that makes them go dark in the sun.  They came, but they didn't have the coating.  so they had to be sent back.  The new ones came, they had the coating but they used the wrong prescription.  then the next two times we went, they broke the lens when they tried to cut them.  In the end, it had to be sent to the lab to be cut and not cut at the store and it was about 4-5 months later.  We got to keep the first pair of glasses as well, because they messed up so much.  It's a 45 min drive each way so it was a chunk of our day gone.  

[Lyn Lou]

I have a couple of stories; 

Garden Furniture;
The first was last year. I have always wanted a rattan garden set. One store I was a customer of sold all sorts of goods at great prices. I saw a Rattan garden set which was originally £1500 and was on sale for £500 a great deal, so we ordered it. on day of expected delivery, we got a message from the Delivery company to say that when they received the garden set it was damaged so they sent it straight back to the store.

We contacted the store hoping they had another one at that price, however, they did not have another one to replace it, and it was reduced as it was their "showroom" product. (We did not know  how it was damaged?). So we asked for a refund......that's where the problems started!! They often say it will take 7 days for it to get into your account, so checked 7 days later no sign of refund, waiting another day just in case of delay....so sign of refund.

I phoned them up and they checked and said I would get it in a few days, they were under the impression it was broken when it arrived to us and kept asking for us to send it  back...but we had not even seen it!  It was in their warehouse!  Few days passed and no sign of the refund, we sent an email to them asking about the refund and no response!  Hubby phoned them up and he explained the situation, they said they will look into it and get back to us.......but they did not get back to us, they kept saying we would get it in a few days... This went on for 7 weeks with emails and phone calls!!

On the Friday I decided to contact the bank and get a chargeback, they agreed to do the chargeback......Monday morning the store got back to me and sent me the refund straight away!! So I cancelled the chargeback. Surprising what it takes to get your money back!! 



Mums Hearing Aids
The other issue is still ongoing. Mum needed new hearing aids, she was using hospital hearing aids, and we decided to get better hearing aids. The Audiologist arrived and tested her hearing to find that she was profoundly deaf in both ears. We knew she was deaf, but had not known to what degree she was deaf in both ears. So we ordered a new pair to arrive 28 days later.

An appointment for a Friday 27th September,  was made, but my niece was not happy as she sees mum on Fridays.....I tried to reason with her but she was being unreasonable and difficult!  So I postponed the appointment to the following week 3rd October. On that day, I was at mums early for the appointment at 9am, we waited for him to arrive and no sign, by 12 noon I decided to ring and find out why he was not there. They apologised and said they would get back to us as they will contact him to find out what happened. We were told he was unwell and they made a new appointment. 

They made a new appointment for the 8th October, but that was cancelled and was told that he was still unwell for the foreseeable,  so they will assign another audiologist out to mum, however, the first man had mums new hearing aids and they would try and get them back. They had cancelled that appointment as they were still waiting to get the hearing aids back from the first man. Another appointment was made on 17th October and was cancelled on the 18th!! 

I emailed them regarding all the cancellations and that I was not happy with all the cancellations, I understand that he was off sick and wondered why we had so many cancellations and mum is disappointed that she had not got her new hearing aids. She apologised and said they were unable to contact the him to get the hearing aids back and that they have now ordered a new pair to be made for mum, to her prescription, so if they did not get the original ones back at least this will sort the problem, and when they arrive we will assign a new audiologist. They made another appt for around the 8th November,  providing they have the original hearing aids or the new hearing aids by then.  Will update with any future developments

Carole: When I tried to submit this information it disappeared! And rather than write it all again, I went to my emails and was about to copy the information from there, i spent time editing, making it ready to copy and paste in here......at that point I found it had restored my previously typed conversation!  This time I quickly copied everything here, before submitting again, in case it disappears again! 

Edited October 31 by Lyn Lou

[Lyn Lou]

One funny story, when my kids were young they were invited to a birthday party with one of their friends. So a week later I got the kids ready for the party, drove them to the event, and no one was there yet, even the door was locked....I thought I must be early.....so we went back to the car and I checked the invitation to see what time the party was......turned out it was for the following week and not that day!! DOH!! 

Edited October 31 by Lyn Lou

[Lyn Lou]

Another funny story,  I was rushing around that day and decided to put a pizza in the oven, when it was done I took it out of the oven, used the pizza cutter to divide the pizza, then went to serve it to the family, but it smelt a bit odd, and then we realised......they had put a polystyrene base underneath the pizza and it had stuck to the bottom of the pizza......I had cooked it with the pizza and it had melted into the pizza 🤣😂🤣 So I had to find something else for dinner!!

[Ann Seeber]

Your pizza story reminds me of my pizza conflagration! 🔥🔥 Our pizza was delivered but no one was ready for it yet, so I turned on the oven to keep it warm. Put it in the oven, box and all. Next thing I knew, the box caught on fire, so I whipped the door open and flung it on the kitchen floor. Unfortunately, there was a throw rug on that floor so it, also, caught on fire!! Luckily, my sink had a spray attachment!😁

[Ann Seeber]

Speaking of fires, I always sauteed the filet of venison 🦌 when a hunter delivered for us. I added a dash of brandy at the end to create venison flambe. Well, this one wouldn't light, sooo... I added more brandy. When lighting it, the flames shot up and consumed my kitchen curtains! 🔥

Edited October 31 by Ann Seeber

[Susan Ewart]

6 hours ago, Lyn Lou said:

One funny story, when my kids were young they were invited to a birthday party with one of their friends. So a week later I got the kids ready for the party, drove them to the event, and no one was there yet, even the door was locked....I thought I must be early.....so we went back to the car and I checked the invitation to see what time the party was......turned out it was for the following week and not that day!! DOH!! 

I did the same thing.  Only the party was in a park and there happened to be a party going on so I thought it was the right party.  I couldn't understand why I didn't recognize at least some of the people.  I slowly made an exit, thankfully no one really noticed if I belonged or not.

[Susan Ewart]

37 minutes ago, Ann Seeber said:

Your pizza story reminds me of my pizza conflagration! 🔥🔥 Our pizza was delivered but no one was ready for it yet, so I turned on the oven to keep it warm. Put it in the oven, box and all. Next thing I knew, the box caught on fire, so I whipped the door open and flung it on the kitchen floor. Unfortunately, there was a throw rug on that floor so it, also, caught on fire!! Luckily, my sink had a spray attachment!😁

I did this with popcorn and my husband grabbed it ran through the living room and out the patio door.  It smelled so bad.  I've also melted a plastic colander in a pot.  I thought I turned the stove off, but I had already turned it off.  so I ended up turning it on high.  I had a kitchen that had a glass sliding door you could close to separate it from the living room.  I closed it and then hubby and I are eating our spaghetti and I look and see the sunset light streaming through the door and I tell my husband to look how nice the light look coming through the kitchen windows.  He says, that's SMOKE!  I jumped up and ran to the kitchen and see a melted colander in a pot on a red hot burner.  I do have a picture of that.  the joke in our family is my husband wants to have an automatic sensor, if I leave the kitchen the appliances turn off.  I am bad for putting stuff on to cook and then taking a "few" minutes to check emails.....well, you can imagine how that turns out.  Don't get me started on how many grilled cheese sandwiches have gone into the organics bin!

[Susan Ewart]

41 minutes ago, Ann Seeber said:

Speaking of fires, I always sauteed the filet of venison 🦌 when a hunter delivered for us. I added a dash of brandy at the end to create venison flambe. Well, this one wouldn't light, sooo... I added more brandy. When lighting it, the flames shot up and consumed my kitchen curtains! 🔥

I'm sorry I hit the laugh button, but I did laugh at the picture in my minds eye.  My mom forgot her eggs boiling on the stove once.  they blew up and she had to scrape them off the ceiling.  

[Ann Seeber]

1 hour ago, Susan Ewart said:

scrape them off the ceiling

that reminds me of my Aunt Bess who tried to make pea soup in a pressure cooker. That ceiling always had a greenish cast to it... 😉

 

[Ann Seeber]

1 hour ago, Susan Ewart said:

I did the same thing.  Only the party was in a park and there happened to be a party going on so I thought it was the right party.  I couldn't understand why I didn't recognize at least some of the people.  I slowly made an exit, thankfully no one really noticed if I belonged or not.

Just a question, did you bring a gift 🎁 and who ended up with it? 😉

 

Edited October 31 by Ann Seeber

[Cassel]

1 hour ago, Susan Ewart said:

I did the same thing.  Only the party was in a park and there happened to be a party going on so I thought it was the right party.  I couldn't understand why I didn't recognize at least some of the people.  I slowly made an exit, thankfully no one really noticed if I belonged or not.

Oh, that reminds me of an awkward situation when I was working as a speech-language pathologist. In the 80's group therapies were kind of new and a way to see more patients in the same time period. I was just starting a group and went to the waiting room, called out the four names I had on my paper. So, kids and parents got up and came to the door. One other lady, with a child got up and said, "Can we come too?". I assumed it was a relative of one of the named patients so I said "Sure". As I started the therapy session, I was obviously concentrating on the four named patients, assuming the fifth child was a sibling (or cousin). After about 15 minutes, the extra child's mom raised her voice and asked "How come X is not part of the game?" That is when we figured out she was waiting for her first session with a different therapist. Oops!!!

[Corrie Kinkel]

When we just had an air fryer, we had my sister in law staying with us for the weekend. On sunday morning I wanted to warm the croissants I bought for breakfast and I had read that you could do so in an air fryer instead of the oven. Yes you can but you have to reduce the heat which I didn't. It should take just a couple of minutes, but in no time at all the kitchen was full of smoke and the croissants turned totally black. It is already many years ago but my dear husband reminds me of it every time we have croissants by asking if I have set the right temperature. I don't know why, I just did it once..........🤣

[Ann Seeber]

1 hour ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

When we just had an air fryer, we had my sister in law staying with us for the weekend. On sunday morning I wanted to warm the croissants I bought for breakfast and I had read that you could do so in an air fryer instead of the oven. Yes you can but you have to reduce the heat which I didn't. It should take just a couple of minutes, but in no time at all the kitchen was full of smoke and the croissants turned totally black. It is already many years ago but my dear husband reminds me of it every time we have croissants by asking if I have set the right temperature. I don't know why, I just did it once..........🤣

Corrie, after the pressure cooker incident at Aunt Bess's my husband hid in the living room every time I used mine! 🤣

[Cassel]

1 hour ago, Ann Seeber said:

Corrie, after the pressure cooker incident at Aunt Bess's my husband hid in the living room every time I used mine! 🤣

I heard stories of my great-grand-mother who was cooking baked beans in a pressure cooker and suddenly remembered she forgot to put the lard and opened it with the pressure still on. Supposedly, there were beans on the ceiling too!

[Lyn Lou]

When I was a kid, my grandfather used to live with us. One day my mother was not feeling well she was laying in bed and the phone rang....She got up to answer the phone and could smell burning she looked into the kitchen and there were flames, my grandfather had tried to make his own breakfast, (for the first time), he had put the toast in the toaster and had some eggs in a frying pan, but he had left them there and forgotten about them......When I came home for lunch with my sisters, a lady who lived several doors from us told us that mum had said we should have lunch with her that day.....so we were not aware of it till we got home from school and the fire had been put out, and the kitchen was black with soot!! 

[Susan Ewart]

10 hours ago, Ann Seeber said:

Just a question, did you bring a gift 🎁 and who ended up with it? 😉

 

I did, it was money, so I went home with it till the next weekend when the party actually was.

[Susan Ewart]

7 hours ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

When we just had an air fryer, we had my sister in law staying with us for the weekend. On sunday morning I wanted to warm the croissants I bought for breakfast and I had read that you could do so in an air fryer instead of the oven. Yes you can but you have to reduce the heat which I didn't. It should take just a couple of minutes, but in no time at all the kitchen was full of smoke and the croissants turned totally black. It is already many years ago but my dear husband reminds me of it every time we have croissants by asking if I have set the right temperature. I don't know why, I just did it once..........🤣

Once is all it takes!  My husband cant remember what I said to him the day before, but he can remember stuff like melting a colander like it just happened.

[Michele]

It's a good thing we can laugh about things years later when we didn't necessarily think they were funny at the time. Thank you for all the laughs, ladies.

[Daniel Hess]

When we lived in Virginia Beach, not long after we got married, my wife went to melt some chocolate for something using the microwave.  I can't remember actual times but where she meant to set it for something like 1 minute, she typoed her keypad entry and set it for 10 minutes.  Of course, she walked off and got busy with something else until the smoke detector went off.  Needless to say, the house didn't smell nice for awhile.  We put the microwave outside in back yard on a picnic table.  It sat out there for close to a month before I went to work on it and cleaned all the burnt residue from the insides and the bottom circular glass tray.  I was positive it wouldn't work after being outside, being rained on, snowed on, etc.  We used that thing for another 7 years LOL.