Mail Order

We've had a bit of a challenge this year with mail order - well, internet ordering and mail delivery, to be precise. And it made me wonder why we still do it.

I started shopping from catalogs when I lived in rural Alaska and it was really the only choice (barring an expensive trip 'outside' to a suburban area with 'real' shopping) for getting almost anything besides groceries. And of course, once you've ordered from a catalog, your mailbox is forever stuffed with them. My son and I used to pour over the Penney's Christmas Toy Catalog for hours of entertainment - and marvelous things came from it! The back-to-school catalogs were well 'thumbed' and ordered from as well, and once we got on a roll it wasn't long before we were ordering everything - clothes, shoes, toys, coats, pots and pans, pillows, light fixtures, chairs, my Chevy Blazer... all from catalogs and 'phone shopping.' We had Vidalia onions coming in from Georgia, Lebanon Bologna coming from Pennsylvania, fresh oysters from Seattle, frozen mini-chimichangas coming from Tucson... Good grief.

I still order popcorn from South Dakota. And last year Mark got started on a Tastycake ordering binge from Pennsylvania (which I'm happy to say we finally got over, although we are still on their email address list for tempting ads... and a butterscotch krimpet ornament hangs somewhat more prominently on our Christmas tree than I'd like.)

So this year I got suckered in by Harry and David's - the place that is always trying to sell apples and pears for outrageous prices because their packaging is so beautiful. Who can resist their 'Tower of Treats?'

I can't, evidently.

So I ordered some for gifts back in November. They were having a sale, and the price made up for the shipping costs, and it just seemed like a good option, so I did it. And assumed that they were on their way. One more thing crossed off my 'to-do' list - I was happy.

But they didn't come. It seems that Harry and David decided that they'd get better shipping rates for themselves (savings not, evidently, passed on to the customer) if they held everything until the last minute and then shipped it all at once via Fed Ex. (It was a secret though - or at least I wasn't told.) Several weeks after I placed my order, Harry (or was it David?) informed me that it would be here 'by Christmas.' Fed Ex tracking finally declared that it had been shipped, but then it was stalled in Kent, WA... and there it stayed. Then it was supposed to be here on the 17th. But alas, it wasn't here on the 17th. Still isn't. (In fairness to H&D - they always 'make it right' and I'm sure they will, from an economic standpoint at least. Disappointing though.)

Mark had bad luck too. He ordered something - large, heavy - to be sent to his family and it seems to be 'lost.' And no one knows where or when it went astray. And no one even seems to know what to do about it now.

So. Quite honestly I live in a place where everything I need - from onions to toys to cars, and yes, even fairly reasonable substitutes for Tastycakes - are quite readily available.

One has to wonder why I can't adjust.