Farmer H Is NOT The New Centipede

Farmer H's new shoes (all four pairs of  them!) were supposed to arrive between Friday and Monday. They were shipping by UPS. Lately, such packages have arrived around 9:30 a.m., though one got here at 4:30 p.m. I wanted to be ready, to call off the barking dogs, lest they scare away a delivery person. 

Friday, I put on my good sweatpants. The ones with no holes, that don't fall down unless I hold them up. They fit fine, but have a ribbed ankle feature, so do not pull up as easily when I want to put wraps on my knees. Every time I heard the dogs bark, I went to the front door to look out. Only to be greeted by galloping Jack and Scarlett, who were barking at Copper Jack, and he at them.

Friday passed, with no delivery. I went through the same procedure on Saturday. No shoes. UPS does not deliver on Sundays. But Monday, I was sure Farmer H's new Skechers would be here. Nope! Surely Tuesday would be the day.

I had mentioned that I could not track this order. The only notifications I had were from PayPal, my method of payment. It was four emails. Two at a time. They had transaction numbers, but no order number. I had nothing from the eBay commerce store where I had seen the info about the shipping dates. No way to go back in there and look for it now. The only option was to download the PayPal app using one of those scannable square thingies with my phone. I don't want the PayPal app! It seems like one more thing that could get hacked.

Anyhoo... in searcing around on the PayPal site, I found a way to download it on my laptop. So I figured I'd just go ahead. I really wanted to find out about Farmer H's shoes.

In going through my PayPal transactions, I saw that the last one was two weeks ago! For my music service that is $11.99 once a month. Nothing at all about the shoes!

I went back to my emails. When I'd looked before, I only looked at one of each of the double emails. You know, because I figured I had been charged twice, and it was just telling me I was getting two shipments of two pairs of shoes each, coming at the same time. I HAD seen the two different transaction numbers in the emails.

Now I clicked on the emails I had not opened before. In these, when I clicked the TRACK PACKAGE button, it took me to the PayPal log-in site, and instead of just giving me the app screen, it let me click on the specific transaction for that eBay Commerce store. 

CANCELED - AUTHORIZATION

The temporary authorization was canceled and your payment method wasn't charged.

What in the Not-Heaven??? I guess the seller didn't do something from their end? Maybe they didn't really have four (or two) pairs of those shoes in that size? Because both of my transactions had that message.

Oh, well. I wasn't charged anything. But now Farmer H will have to go barefoot until I can find somewhere to buy his very special shoes!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off To Work The Beast Of Burden Goes

The Pony returned to work on Tuesday. The rash was not painful, the less-acute rashy areas fading away. The right arm was still covered, but seeming to be getting on with the healing process. The Pony was able to get more than four hours of sleep, and take a regular shower instead of a cold shower. That might be reflected in the appearance of the Tuesday morning rash.

Those bumps look pretty red in the morning sunlight of the parking lot, but they are shrinking, and perhaps starting to dry out a bit. 

The Pony felt fine, and his doctor's note was only for Monday. The doctor had said that the steroids would have kicked in after a full day on them. Still, if he needed, The Pony has accumulated leave that he could have used to stay home another day to recover. 

As I write this, it's NOON:17 on Tuesday. Bright and sunny. I'm hoping The Pony has an uneventful day of work. I'm back to my regular worry schedule.

The Ever-Resilient Pony

The Pony got up to get ready for work on Monday morning, still vacillating on whether to go in. With the cream and the steroid medications, the pain was not as bad in his rashy arms. Then again, would a day walking around with intermittent clouds and sun, at temps in the 70s, irritate the rash even more? He had the doctor's note, and he had accumulated sick leave. Yet he hated the thought of making the office short-handed on a Monday.

The Pony said he would decide after a shower. 

The Pony decided to stay home, rather than risk further irritation. I understand.

"That's your call. NO judgement from me!"

"I don't want to scratch any of those bumps and end up with a staph infection. The doctor said if it didn't hurt, I could go back to work. Just don't do anything that could get the area infected."

"Maybe you need some "sun sleeves" to wear over your arms for a couple of days."

"I think I have two, but that was from when my dog bite was healing, and the sun hurt the new skin coming in. I can't use it now, because the cream for the rash says NOT to cover it. To leave it exposed while having the cream on it."

"Oh. I didn't think of that."

"I'm sure Dad will have judgement about me missing work."

"Well. You know Dad. He's sitting right here listening. Want me to ask? I'll show him your newest pictures. Huh. Dad says, 'I always figure I can be sick at work as well as I can be sick at home. And get paid for it.'"

"I have sick leave. So I'm getting paid anyway."

"I'm not sure I'd want to see my mailman with a rash like that, touching my mail!"

"I hate to leave all that work for other people, but I'm calling out today."

The Pony actually seemed in good spirits. Even suggested a casino trip in a couple of weeks on a day off. So many physical things have gone wrong lately. But our little Pony was chipper. Upbeat.

Of course, that could have been the steroids talking...