I’m becoming a serial on-line shopper. To set this up correctly I must express my disdain for shopping the usual way. Like stick me in a mall and watch me self-combust. I hate it. Too many bad experiences and choices forced on me in public where I couldn’t push back.
So now while I’m wasting time on my laptop, stuff starts popping up like these two most recent impulse purchases: a grey corduroy shirt and a salmon colored cardigan. Basic stuff. No fuss with size and ya see what you’re getting.
But you’re not! First warning sign is when you order them and they don’t arrive for six to eight weeks and you keep getting email updates to track your order but it’s not left the factory yet. With the shirt, it was so delayed that they (whoever they was) discounted it by 40% on a purchase that was already discounted down to $19.99, that magical gotcha price. So two months later the shirt rolls into town. It’s still the Fall so it’ll get some usage I surmise.
Well I wish I had taken a picture of this gem but I was too embarrassed. No tags inside the shirt. No size tag. No Made In Somewhere tag. No laundry care tag. Nutt’n. Stitching that looked like a child did it by hand under duress. Buttons that were not just different sizes but different colors. Like the kid yelled out I need more buttons and someone grabbed a fistful and tossed ’em over. The left sleeve draped like something out of Doctor Zhivago. Bell shaped. Huge and hanging well past my fingers. The right sleeve looked like a tube of Reynold’s Wrap. I couldn’t get it past my wrist. But hey, what with the discounted price and then the extra 40% off I was only out twelve bucks. I would have used it as a dust cloth but there was ZERO nap to this corduroy. Nothing to catch any dust.
So that happened. Two days later the cardigan sweater arrives. Well it’s not a soothing salmon color. It looks more like a crossing guard’s top. Yes I’d stop traffic in this getup. So this one had cool buttons, nice size and wood colored. But they forgot to punch out the holes on the other side so it hung like an open shutter. Like the shirt, no tags = no evidence. Shipped from somewhere in Newark even though it took two months to get to me in Philadelphia which is one hour away.
And this time I was out forty five bucks. That’s lunch money!
So I took them to a consignment shop down the block just to drop them off but they wouldn’t accept them. They told me that the Trinity Church at Rittenhouse Square accepted donations and thought they might take the goods. I knocked on a side door. A woman accepted them and then asked if I wanted a receipt for tax purposes.
How do you write off stupidity?