Sleeping With Umbrellas

Well the holidays might be over, but the joy is not. As a bi-coastal resident of San Francisco and Washington, D.C., my Christmas gifts nowadays consist mostly of hard plastic gift cards. As exciting as it is to carry around a tiny little memo of how much your parents love you in the amounts of $20, $40 or even $100, the excitement this Christmas season quickly wore off after the following events occurred with one Macy’s gift card.

December 29th, 2007: While home over the holidays in San Francisco, I decided to take said Macy’s gift card online and order new linens to be delivered at my apartment in Washington DC. Due to lack of sufficient gift card funds for an oh-so-desirable set of linens from Calvin Klein, my father decides to pitch in and help out with the remaining total. I fill out his information (address, CC #, etc) and my gift card information and go along my merry way - click, click, send, done.

January 1, 2008: I get an email from Macys.com reporting that my order has been canceled. I decide to call customer service and request an explanation. I soon find out that I put the wrong billing address for Dad’s credit card. He must call and discuss with customer service.

January 3, 2008: Dad begrudgingly calls Macys.com and gets order reinstated. However, in doing so, Macy’s forgets to include gift card. $100 is now floating in cyberspace.

January 8, 2008: I have now called Macys.com about five times in an attempt to get a new gift card reissued or apply it to the new order. They proceed to connect me with gift card hotline, and then sends me back to online shopping hotline. I am customer service hell for about two hours. Not one representative can help me. They ask me to have my father, who is busy recovering from hip surgery, call AGAIN and fix the order.

I ask, “What should he say this time, that will make sure that the gift card is redeemed and all taken care of?”

I get no response.

January 15,2008: Gift card is still aloof in cyberspace. Father is too busy to call and get money redeemed. I wait patiently for the new linens to come, despite the aggravation over losing $100.

January 18, 2008: Boxes from Macy’s arrive! Finally I will get to roll around in my new linens and comforter! GLORIOUS!

But wait -

I open the box and low and behold, Macys did not send me said plush Calvin Klein comforter, but rather, a 4-foot tall massive umbrella.

And now I am still without gift card, linens, and my sanity.

But, I have one hell of an umbrella.