Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom Begins A New Career As A Waiter

This waiting business if for the birds!

All day I've been available. Normally, I wouldn't care if I missed the UPS truck. They leave the package anyway. No, you're not going to trick me into telling where! Normally, it's not a problem. After all, this time last year, and every other year, I would have been at work. But this package is special. It needs a signature.

Shh...don't tell anyone, but this package contains tickets to a Sooner football game. Not that we're big fans. It's just that on September 10, The Pony must walk out on the field in Norman, Oklahoma, with the other 277 National Merit Scholars to be recognized for his accomplishment. And to promote the U of O as a fine place for such Scholars to further their education. Yes, this appearance is mandatory. A requirement of the generous scholarship. They will all wear a specific free T-shirt they were handed at the recognition dinner on the Friday before classes started.

Farmer H wanted to go, and he's taking HOS with him. The #1 son considered it, but he has a tour scheduled with a big solar car donor that weekend. I do not enjoy crowds, so I am not making the trip. It is quite an involved process, these visits to see The Pony. A whole day going, a whole day coming back. At least two nights in a hotel. Gas. Food. For this excursion, I got Farmer H and HOS each a Sooners shirt, and a cap. They arrived in 3 days, shipped by UPS and their partner the USPS. Showed up with a key in EmBee for the lockbox at the end of mailbox row.

These tickets need a signature. Thing is, there were no tickets available on the website used by the university. Sold out. Apparently, many people are Sooners fans! Who knew? So I had to go to a division of Ticketmaster that deals with people reselling their tickets. I could have chosen the option of printing my own tickets, or picking them up at will-call. No thank you. What if the printer doesn't work? Then how do I prove it? How do I know if the barcode is legit? And I don't know about Farmer H, but I would not feel comfortable planning the whole trip, then arriving to find there was no record of the tickets at will-call. No siree, Bob! I'm the kind of person who wants the hard-copy actual tickets in my hand. And that option means that a person has to sign for the tickets upon delivery.

You know, right, that if UPS says the tickets have gone out for delivery at 8:24 a.m., and will arrive by the end of the day...that if you run to town around 10:00 for a 44 oz Diet Coke, that's when they'll arrive. But if you don't, and sit watching out the living room window for the truck, they won't arrive until 6:59 p.m.

It is now 3:00.

No sign of the tickets. My Shiba is about to lose her charge. No big deal, I'll just plug her in again. It's not like I'm chillin' in my dark basement lair with a 44 oz Diet Coke at my right elbow. Can't hear the doorbell very well down there. AND by the time I make it up 13 steps, the delivery dude will be gone with my tickets.

Monday, I called the ticket service. The email they originally sent said that the tickets would ship on August 26. I paid for them on August 23. Allegedly, I would get an email when they shipped. By Monday, August 29, I was getting antsy. No email. No sign of shipping. I called customer service. Waited 13 minutes (I think I'm seeing some bad juju here) on hold, then explained my predicament. "Is there anything else I need to do? The email said to set my shipping preferences, but that's a pay service, and I don't plan to do that." No, I was assured, nothing else needed to be done by me. They were just waiting for the shipping label to be printed. Then my order would show up on tracking later in the day. I made this call at 2:30 in the afternoon. By 3:45 I had the updated shipping email. I wonder what might have happened if I had not called...

Tomorrow, I plan an exciting day of watching a pot while waiting for it to boil. Perhaps painting a wall to watch it dry. Or maybe I can find a golf match on TV.

This waiting business is for the birds.

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Heh, heh! Nothing like disparaging the delivery system to bring about service! It's 3:15, and my package has arrived!

BOOMER SOONER!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

As the Fonz would say, excitimundo!!

Hillbilly Mom said...

fishducky,
Hopefully, Farmer H won't follow in the Fonz's tire tracks and try to jump a shark on the way to Oklahoma.

Sioux Roslawski said...

HM--If you hone your skills as a waiter, you and Farmer H could open up a cafe to cater to your tour customers. Farmer H could be the chef.

What delicacies would be on the menu?

Hillbilly Mom said...

Sioux,
I don't want to think about Farmer H's delicacies. Not after he force-fed me road-kill turkey deep-fried (though shallowly) for four hours in a saucepan on a Coleman camp stove.