Letters to Holly

Thursday, May 20

Bed Wares

We got your card. It's on the fridge.

I don't know if you heard the chaos that ensued when My Mom decided to get the baby furniture on our registry. Initially, we balked at the months-old suggestion that we get a bureau. There's no room in the room. That didn't go over so well from either set of parents; they took it as a snub of their generosity. But there's an entire wall of shelves already there. We cemented our assertion over a couple of weeks and again when Mom said recently she was going to get the crib and changing station.

We registered at Babies R Us for both items, but there is no store where Mom lives. She went to Toys R Us to order it with the notion that it could be picked up at the BRU store near us. And a good notion it was. But BRU and TRU is a swamp of conflicting store policies.

I used to work for TRU. n fact, I worked for that very same TRU. It was my seasonal job during ECU semester breaks. As retail work goes, it was fine. I could help the parents and kids looking for specific video games and action figures. I was the shopper's friend. But the management instilled an ever-changing stream of policies that we floor employees wrestled with daily. I suspected Mom's plan would hit obstacles.

Yep. The changing station we registered for months back is no longer in stock, according to BRU, and the store could not say when or if the company would produce more. That created parental dismay, no matter how much we assured them that any stable TV tray would work. Back when TVs weighed more than a car, the TV stands had to hold them up for years at a time. They could manage a baby. Eventually we got the station at KMart. I don't care if it matches nothing in the room. Neither will Roo. It's a poop corral. It's not a treasured item. By the time Roo can identify items, he won't need it.

The crib caused more trouble. The bedrails that allow the crib to fully convert to a toddler bed are sold separately. You'd think that the store would have more of them than cribs; after all, not everyone would buy the rails if they don't want to use the conversion mode. No. The store didn't have rails in stock. Nor did they have the cribs in stock. Mom put in an order, and we were told we would be notified when it arrived.

They said they could deliver, and that would b convenient. Then they realized we only had three items (including the mattress) and then they saw our address. Not to our house, not for so small a package. We were told it wouldn't be worth the gas money to drive an hour to our house. Fine. We have big vehicles now. We can carry our items.

I got the call yesterday to pick them up. To their credit, it was almost two weeks earlier than we expected. I got there and was told neither of our names appeared in their shipment folder. But I was called, I said. I was called by name. Here's your store number on my cell phone, I said. It's from an hour ago. They found our names in another folder. But there was confusion. One item was in my last name (because Mom ordered it), and the other was in Your Sister's name (because she ordered it). I proved to them I could receive both items. Our names are on the registry. Yes, she's my baby mama.

Then I was asked if I wanted to buy protection warranties for the items. I was quoted a price. It seemed reasonable, and I agreed. The card was scanned, and the receipt signed. And would I want similar protection for the other item? The price I paid wasn't for both. It was for the cheaper item. The new cost was double. No no no. I canceled it out. At least, I started the process, because then the stockman arrived with my items. I saw the size of the crib box and said we might have to remove the box to fit the crib in the car. I was told the box was only barely bigger than the crib. But, he said, we deliver. I informed him of we had been told (remembering the conflicting policy decrees I dealt with when I wore his apron). I told him what we were told, and that if the crib didn't fit in my car, I'd come back with a bigger vehicle. He argued the policy, and I could only repeat again what we were told.

To our amazement, the crib box fit perfectly. As I closed the hatchback, the cashier arrived with the refund for the canceled insurance. And off I went. All this difficulty will prepare us for a two-year-old. I'm positive.

I put both items together last night, and it took three hours. The crib was easy. The changing station was murder. Because it involves joining supports and shelves and frames, you are required to have six hands to hold items together before screwing them in place. I was exhausted when I finished, and I chewed dinner only out of instinct. But, no, there is no room for a bureau.

Picture of the Day
Closed captioning is awkward in other languages.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i first saw napoleon dynamite on a bootleg dvd that i bought in the bus rank of johannesburg. though in english, the film had english subtitles. we were able to figure out, since one of our PCV spoke mandarin, that the film was back translated with computer software from chinese. it was wild. The prim-o examples that I can recall: Pedro was "The Conch" and every time the verb "to do" was used, and hey...it's a pretty common helping verb,so it see a lot of action in a screenplay, it was translated as "f*ck."