Easy target

I just spent an inordinate amount of time listing stuff on eBay and Craigslist. Every time after we move or even just have a yard sale I wind up with some things that I don't want to bring back into the house but I can't just send on to Goodwill like the rest of my rejects.

Sometimes I'm irrationally defensive of it, usually for nostalgic reasons, e.g., I can't believe none of the yard sale crowd couldn't see past the chips in this coffee mug my mom gave me in college! Sometimes I'm trying to make up for spending too much on it myself, e.g., I paid $25 for these extra wet bags because I didn't know I'd only have two kids in cloth diapers for one month, and I am not just going to give them away!

Typically I load everything into a laundry basket in the trunk of my car and, over the next few weeks, make the rounds -- the children's consignment store, the consignment store where I take my clothes, the consignment store where I take my housewares, the used bookstore where I take my books, various stores for returns of unopened merchandise, Amanda's garage for Fed By Faith, friends' houses for their own yard sales and possibly better luck. Anything left after all this is finally given up and away.

Returns: I consider myself to be pretty shameless about them. Matt thinks I'm crazy, and now you all will too, but I have no problem returning something as small as a four-pack of packing tape I ended up not needing. I wouldn't go out of my way to do this, but I always keep my receipts and these items in the trunk of my car so I can hit up customer service next time I'm at the store.

However, I don't return perishable items and personally I don't think stores should even accept returns for them. If someone buys a pack of bacon and then changes her mind, does the store put it back on the shelf? I hope not -- there's no way to know whether it was refrigerated, etc., while the original buyer had it. And if the store just throws it away, that bothers me too, and it makes all of our prices go up.

A couple of months ago our whole family was at Walmart and Matt was taking care of a return while the kids and I got started shopping. The woman in front of Matt at customer service was trying to return meat that had EXPIRED the day before -- and they let her! Matt said they did have to call in a supervisor to approve it, and they only gave her store credit, not cash, but come on. I hate to use "Walmart" and "generous" in the same sentence, but they do have a generous return policy, and it annoys me when people so blatantly take advantage of things like that.

Talking about Walmart reminds me of another good story. I didn't know this post was going to turn into a Walmart-crazies rant; this is fun.

A few weeks ago I went to Walmart (by myself) and when I came out, loaded up the groceries and got ready to leave, I found I couldn't back out because a truck was behind me, waiting for someone else to pull out so they could have their spot. This is another pet peeve of mine, but I waited patiently for a couple of minutes. By that time the cars were starting to line up behind this truck and I was starting to get annoyed. I wasn't in a particular rush (for once), but they were being so inconsiderate.

I was the closest car to them so I got out to talk to them. When I got to their truck I saw they were an elderly couple so, trust me, I was VERY GRACIOUS and totally giving them the benefit of the doubt when I told them there were quite a few cars waiting on them and asked if maybe they could circle around.

They started talking (NOT graciously) at the same time. Husband: "If you're in a hurry, you should have started sooner." Wife: "We're in a hurry too, but we have to park somewhere." I didn't argue, just got back in my car. The whole crowd of us sat there probably at least five more minutes -- the cars on both sides of mine were waiting by this time too -- and I finally escaped when the car parked in front of me left and I pulled through. I don't know how much longer everyone else was there. Ah, the 'mart: bringing out the worst in all of us. I love to hate it.

Say cheese

Tomorrow's picture day at preschool. This is just one more opportunity for me to be the bad mom who refuses to shell out, but I don't care. I am constantly amazed how many hidden expenses come with kids in school. Not that they're all bad, not at all -- but they could add up if you let them. Birthday gifts, classroom parties, book fairs, gifts for the teachers, fingerpaintings that you can pay to have plastered on anything imaginable ... it's a little more than I expected for a 2-year-old.

Once a month there's a school spirit day when all the kids are supposed to wear their school T-shirt if they have one. I didn't buy one for Evan, but I caved for Claire because I didn't want her to be the only one in her class not wearing one. Bad reasoning? Maybe -- probably -- but for $10 I didn't get philosophical about it.

It's only going to get worse. The parties will get more elaborate and the peer pressure will get more intense. Yearbooks, sports uniforms, musical instruments, field trips, brand awareness and more will get thrown into the mix. We'll be asked to sell random raffle tickets and overpriced cookie dough and wrapping paper no one wants to buy. Oh my.

And just like that, I'm glad it's only picture day tomorrow.

(Rabbit*) An announcement

Don't get excited, not that kind of announcement.

I have signed on for October's NaBloPoMo, meaning I will hope to blog every day for the month of October. I'm not promising a month of meaningful posts. It might be a month of blah blah blog. But I miss ye olde Green Grass and I want to get back in the groove.

Since I have the floor, I'd like to point out something that I think is really twisted. Apparently PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is up in arms about this picture of a chicken that ran in The New York Times' food section on Wednesday:

Matt sent me an article quoting PETA's founder and president, Ingrid Newkirk, calling it "downright offensive, not just to people who care about animals but almost to everyone. It's a plucked, beheaded, young chicken in a young pose."

OK. No. That's dumb. But here's the really crazy part. According to another article, PETA is starting its own porn site. Featuring women. Because apparently it's OK to exploit women (they want to be exploited!). Just back off the chicken, everybody (they're being exploited without their consent!).

According to that article, PETA's porn site "will show pornographic content ... interspersed with pictures and videos showing animals being mistreated and ... links to vegan and vegetarian 'starter kits' and recipes."

PETA's associate director of campaigns, Lindsay Rajt, explained, "When people first visit the site, it will be very enticing and once they go just a little bit deeper, that's when they'll be confronted with images that we hope will make them stop and think and get them talking and hopefully encourage them to make a lifestyle change to a plant-based diet."

Yes, I can see that working, PETA. Brilliant idea.

What's your opinion? Am I overreacting? Does that chicken offend you? Is pornography a realistic path to veganism? You won't change my mind, but I'm still curious what you think.

*

A rhyming whine

(Watch this short video -- click here -- before reading my own true, equally ridiculous version.)

My First-World Problems

I haven't hit the gym in more than a week
I'm drowning in laundry from our trip to the beach

We got home to find my car battery was dead
For a day I had to drive Matt's Lexus instead

My engagement ring has a crooked prong
My mind can't turn off a certain Queen song

Our couch is so ugly it could pass for modern art
Our new house is so perfect that it kind of hurts my heart

Mom's Morning Out is over till the fall
Which means some days there's no me-time at all

The writers I am editing can't learn to use a hyphen
Does any word rhyme with that except "siphon"?

Our auto-start coffeepot lacks battery backup
So overnight storms can delay my first cup

There's a glare on the TV that we watch on the treadmill
I need a cut and color like a burger needs a grill

We can't park in the garage because it's full of excess stuff
None of our wine glasses seem big enough

I have to walk upstairs to talk on my cell phone
And I'm embarrassed to admit I could go on and on

Grammar hammer

Dear [editors],

I'm glad to have begun writing on a freelance basis for The Pilot. I've been assigned interesting stories and the pay, if not princely, is always prompt.

I particularly enjoyed writing about Sandhills Farm to Table, a movement that in both principle and practice exemplifies so much of what I love about our community.

When I read the first installment of this series this morning, I was disappointed to find that two mistakes had been inserted into my copy. As mistakes go, they're minor -- an ill-advised apostrophe and a questionable capital letter. But it's always disheartening when copy editing, which is meant to guard against errors large and small, and above all should do no harm, does just that.

My main quarrel is with the addition of an apostrophe in the following sentence: “What this does is guarantee the farmers’ purchase of their produce,” McAllister says. This apostrophe makes "farmers" possessive, as if they themselves will be purchasing their produce. Which, of course, makes no sense.

I also noticed the capitalization of "the" in the following sentence: "The hope, adds McAllister, who oversees distribution at The Village Chapel location, is to create a win-win situation in which 'every Moore County resident has secure access to sufficient local farm and food products.'" The Village Chapel's proper name does include "The," so its capitalization in a given sentence is a question of style as much as of technical correctness.

The closest AP style opinion I could find was this: "The definite article is generally lowercase in AP news stories about universities, professional organizations and the like." But Bill Walsh, a copy editor at The Washington Post (or, a Washington Post copy editor), addressed the question on his blog, http://theslot.blogspot.com.

"Don't go capitalizing 'the' in something like 'the Hague-based International Court of Justice,' even if you normally cap 'The Hague.' In that instance, 'the' goes with 'International Court of Justice,' not with 'Hague,'" he wrote.

Likewise, in my article, "the" goes with "location," not with "Village Chapel."

Again, as mistakes go, these are small, and few readers will notice them. But they're still mistakes. And taking care with details like punctuation and capitalization implies you're also committed to accuracy with the facts. Inversely, sloppiness in the details can cast doubt on the credibility of the content, not to mention the writer and the publication.

Print being print, it's too late to change the hard copy. But could you please correct the online version of this article?

Thanks so much.

A second chance

Today I gave Walgreens another chance.

I have been boycotting them ever since my horrible flu shot experience*, but this week I had two coupons that would let me get three Nivea chapsticks (what's the generic term for that?) and a bottle of Nivea's extra-dry skin lotion, my all-time favorite, for about $2 total when combined with store sales. I reasoned that they probably would actually prefer not to get that kind of business, so I could give it in good conscience.

But when I got there they were out of the chapstick AND the lotion I wanted, the bottle with the blue cap, which works the best and smells the best. So I had to scrap my plan.

As I headed toward the door, I watched a woman come in from the parking lot, march to the cash register, wave a receipt and demand "Where's my $4 register rewards?"

I immediately thought of Amanda's ongoing battles with Walgreens' register rewards program (and employees who don't know how it works), smiled to myself and walked out glad that, despite a moment of weakness, I'm still boycotting Walgreens and their poor organization and management.

*I never got a response to my letter.

A rant

Dear Walgreens of Aberdeen,

I won't be able to fully express how frustrating my experience with you today was, but I'm going to try.

You were supposed to have flu shots -- only 50 of them -- available starting at 10 this morning. I woke my 3-month-old daughter from a sound sleep to drop her off at my parents' house and arrived at your store at 10:05. I was the 10th person in line. One by one, we filled out the paperwork. All of us were told the shots would be given based on our place in line, that we would be paged when it was our turn, and that meanwhile we could shop.

An hour later, most of us had tired of walking in circles around the store and had returned to the pharmacy area, where we flipped through magazines or chatted with other waiting people as the clock kept ticking with no sign of the pharmacist. Finally, he emerged and gave about five flu shots, then scooted back behind the counter and out of sight. Forty-five minutes later, he returned and gave five more people their shots.

At that point it became obvious that the shots were not being given in order, as no one in that second round was among the first 10 in the initial line. When several people asked when, approximately, they might get their shot (since the first-come, first-serve method was obviously not being applied), the pharmacist got snappy and said he didn't know. That was reassuring.

It was about this time that my parents called saying my daughter was hungry and crying inconsolably. (Having never expected getting the flu shot to turn into an all-morning ordeal, I'd left her with only one bottle.) I asked a pharmacy worker whether she had any idea at all how much longer it would be before my name came up. She did not. I asked her if I could leave, feed my daughter and return. I told her I could be back within 45 minutes or at any time later in the day. She said I'd lose not just my place in line (worthless anyway) but my claim on a flu shot if I left.

I called my parents to tell them this wasn't worth the trouble and I was coming home. My phone call woke my daughter, whom my dad had finally gotten to sleep. She was screaming so loudly he couldn't hear anything I said, but he told me my mom and grandmother were on their way to my house to get a bottle for her, and that I should just stick it out at Walgreens. After all, I'd already devoted a whole morning to the cause.

So I stayed. Another round of people got their shots. Not I. By this time the pharmacy area was full of irritated people, all of whom were sick of waiting and completely confused as to the order in which flu shots were being given out. Some late arrivers were getting their shot before others who (like me) had been waiting for two and a half hours. Mixed in among us were people waiting not for a flu shot but one, two or three hours for a prescription to be filled.

If there was a method to the madness, all of your employees refused to disclose it. Seriously, it felt like we were unknowing participants in some kind of psychological experiment. I finally got my shot at 12:30.

Walgreens, you really dropped the ball on this one. The fact that you were still giving flu shots when almost everywhere else in town was out of the vaccine was an opportunity for you to impress potential new customers with your efficiency, competence and service. Instead, I'm happier than ever that we have kept our prescription business with a local non-chain drug store that's served us well for years. I had plenty of time to talk with the people waiting with me this morning, and many expressed similar sentiments.

If you're going to provide flu shots, do everyone -- that includes you, since I'll be shocked if you don't lose some customers over this -- a favor and figure out a system that works. Hire more pharmacy workers so someone can focus on people who are there just for the flu shot. Or have special early or late hours only for giving the flu shot.

And be candid with your customers about how long you expect the wait to be. Most of the people I talked with this morning didn't mind the wait itself; it was the wait's open-endedness that was maddening.

If I'd been told at 10:05 a.m. that it would be, let's say, at least noon before I could get the shot, I could have used that time well. I could have gotten an oil change, dropped by my office, picked up our dry cleaning, gone to the library, done a week's worth of grocery shopping or met my husband for an early lunch. I could even have worked out at my gym, right across the street, or driven to my parents' house and fed my daughter, avoiding a huge headache for my parents.

Instead I spent all morning getting more and more frustrated, composing this letter in my head and vowing not to return to your store anytime soon. The first thing I did when I got home was announce to my 331 Facebook friends: "I am confident that getting the flu would be preferable to today's maddening flu-shot ordeal at Walgreens." The second thing I did was write this letter, which will be posted on my blog and copied to Walgreens' corporate headquarters. Third, I ate a very late lunch.

I would be remiss, however, not to mention one of your pharmacy workers, Taylor. All morning she was incredibly courteous and patient with the dozens of disgruntled people venting their frustrations to her. She reflected really well on your store.

Thanks for the flu shot, but next year I may just take my chances with the flu.

Court case (get it?)

Here's the situation. What do you think is fair?

The deadline to join our March Madness pool (by signing up and filling out a bracket) was last Thursday at noon. As of 10 a.m. a few people who had signed up still hadn't filled out their brackets. I called or emailed all of them to remind them they only had two more hours.

One of them, "L," thanked me for calling and immediately hung up to start working on her brackets. A few minutes later she called me back and our conversation went something like this:

L: OK, once my bracket is filled out, is that it? It's done?
Me: Yeah, if you saved it, you're good to go.
L: So that's it, it's final.
Me: Yes.
L: Oh. There was something I wanted to change, but if it's final, then OK.

(Until this point I thought we were having a conversation about whether she'd done everything she needed to do to be part of the pool.)

Me: Wait, what? I mean, yes your bracket is saved, but you can still make changes until noon.
L: OK, I have to go. (Distracted by kids in the background.)

The whole conversation lasted less than a minute and I didn't think about it again until the cookout Saturday night. That's when I happened to hear her tell someone that she had UNC winning, but meant to have Pittsburgh, but originally saved her bracket with UNC as the champion and after that it was too late to change it.

As soon as I heard that I realized that a) the miscommunication was partly or mostly my fault and b) Matt, as pool commissioner, has the power to change people's picks. So I stepped into the conversation:

Me: L, when you called to ask me about that, at first I thought you were just making sure you had done everything you needed to do to be entered in the pool. But remember, then I realized you were asking if you could still make changes, and I said you could until noon that day?
L: What? Nooo!
Me: Matt can still make changes even now. I'll tell him all this and see what he says.

So I explained ALL this to Matt. It's not a clear-cut case. Right now he's leaning against changing her pick, but he's still deliberating. His stance is, basically, that he believes she meant to have Pittsburgh, and he realizes she changed her mind before the brackets were closed, but unfortunately there was a miscommunication, she wound up with UNC, and now it is what it is.

I disagree, but I admit my judgment might be clouded because I feel responsible for the miscommunication.

Other considerations:

- Seventeen of the 30 people in our pool picked UNC to win it all. Only two picked Pittsburgh.
- One of the people who picked Pittsburgh is tied for first place in our pool right now.
- The other person who picked Pittsburgh is Matt. Right now he is tied for third, and L is tied for sixth. Although I (and L) know Matt well enough to know for sure this isn't affecting his decision, it still has the appearance of a conflict of interest.
- Everyone in our pool is going to notice if L changes her championship pick, and no one who hasn't heard the full story is likely to believe she had a legitimate case.

Is anyone still with me? What do you think? Should Matt, as all-powerful commissioner, exert his authority to change L's pick to Pittsburgh? Or should things stay as they are?

The longer this decision is delayed the more suspicious any change appears. It definitely needs to be settled one way or the other before the games start back up tomorrow.

Cheap

"I've always disliked and mistrusted this carnival shill approach to the church -- and yet heaven knows we see it often enough. Does it really work? I don't think so, but more than that I think it's all wrong.

"Because for one thing it's so unworthy. I don't mean by this that it's too informal, too much in the market place, too "popular"; I do mean, quite simply, that it's cheap. Obviously when you talk about such things as God, religion, the church, man's soul, to a great many different people, you must necessarily do so in a great many different ways and on a great many different levels.

"But none of these levels can be -- or at least none of them should be -- in any sense flashy or false or vulgar, because if they are -- no matter what the apparent justification -- you run the very serious risk of making God, religion, the church, and man's soul seem just a little bit of the same.

"It's all very well to suggest that this really doesn't matter so much, that what does matter is that, as a result, the people come in, but I think that's a great mistake. I know they come in -- and often in considerable numbers -- in response to such techniques. That's not surprising. The gaudy, the meretricious, frequently have a powerful and immediate seductiveness: at a fair or a circus, the children invariably make a beeline for those horrible puffs of pink candy. But what is surprising is that we sometimes take comfort from this: I know priests, for example, who will point with great pride to statistics proving the value of such appeals. So many appeals, so many souls for God: Q.E.D.

"Of course what the statistics don't do so well is to measure the depth, the strength, and the duration of the faith of those who do so come in -- or in other words, they tell you absolutely nothing about the only thing that counts. And -- still more -- while there are all sorts of statistics to tell you how many souls these tactics have brought in, there are no statistics at all to tell you how many they may have kept out.

"Who knows, for instance, who can even guess the number of those who, with every sympathy, with every good will, have tentatively approached the church only to be repelled by vaudeville antics at their first point of contact? As I say, we have no statistics for that at all; if we had, they might not be so comforting."

- "The Edge of Sadness" by Edwin O'Connor

O happy day

I loved today. I got to sit in Panera Bread all day long, listening to new music I love (I spent some time updating my iTunes over the holidays) and writing more than half of a big story I've procrastinated way too long and at one point turning off the music (but keeping the headphones) to eavesdrop on a job interview taking place at the table beside me.

At 3 I had to leave to get a cavity filled, which I was dreading. I consider myself to have high pain tolerance but not when it comes to my teeth -- they're just so sensitive. But this appointment had already been rescheduled once (it was originally supposed to be done the day I found out I was pregnant, and they told me to postpone it until the second trimester), so I was just ready to get it over with, because I have no interest in root canals. Isn't that what happens when a cavity's too bad? Maybe not.

Anyway, I went to the dentist and gave them a form letter from my doctor telling them which medicines are and aren't OK for me to have during pregnancy. Apparently the letter wasn't detailed enough so they called the doctor's office with some specific questions, and the person they needed to talk to hadn't called them back before it was too late to fit in my filling. I got to go home! This is kind of the opposite of delayed gratification, but I welcomed it today. And getting home early meant I got to fit in a great long run outside.

My headaches have been much better the past two days. I think it's been good to start to get back in a normal routine and on some semblance of a normal sleep schedule. I also am making a concerted effort to drink more water and to eat more, which isn't that easy because a lot of foods don't sound appealing to me. It's not like I'm queasy, I just don't have much of an appetite. I thought over what I'd eaten a few days recently and realized it didn't add up to much, so maybe that did contribute to the headaches.

This book I'm reading about Wal-Mart is really making me think about boycotting Wal-Mart. I already despise the entire experience of shopping there -- from parking to the crowded aisles to the checkout lanes to running into half the town. Reading about the massive, global negative effects of their "everyday low prices" (specifically, what is sacrificed to keep those prices low) helps put the few dollars I might save there in perspective. I won't go off on it now, and I haven't even finished the book yet, but I won't be surprised if I join Kate in cutting Wal-Mart out of my life soon.

Take me off your list

Thanks so much to everyone in my e-mail address book who has decided that junk mail companies, telemarketers and professional spammers pushing cheap Viagra left too much of my time unwasted.

I am grateful, friends and acquaintances, for your thoughtful, intelligent e-mail forwards.

Without them I might have remained blissfully unaware that Obama refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, Mexicans illegally working in the United States will soon collect Social Security benefits and an egg can be cooked by placing it between two activated cell phones. Yes, thank you indeed!

Next time, please check Snopes.com before hitting "send." Or take me off your list.

I love the panda

I'm glad I've gotten in some good time with Amanda this week. Considering that she's working two jobs and getting her master's "on the side," that can be tough! Thursday after work she and Kate and I went to Rock the Plaza in downtown Southern Pines, then Amanda and I went to her house.

For weeks or maybe a couple of months, Amanda's been saving a DVR'd episode of "30 Days" for us to watch together. The show's concept is really cool: Morgan Spurlock (the "Super Size Me" guy) tries out other people's typical lives for 3o days at a time -- 30 days as a coal miner, 30 days as a straight man in a gay world, etc.

The one Amanda saved for me was 30 days of surviving on minimum wage. It was in the vein of "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America," which definitely leans to the left but I think everyone should read.

Then Friday after work Matt and I went to Amanda and Stephen's to play nine holes of golf. Thank goodness we played captain's choice or we would have been out there all night. It was the first time I'd actually played nine holes.

The thing about golf is, I had fun riding around with everyone, but if it had mattered how well I played, I would have been miserable. And I don't see how anyone gets good at golf without playing it A LOT. And it's a very expensive hobby -- from the cost of buying the right equipment and clothes, to various fees every time you play.

And people take it SO seriously! No talking while people are hitting. Stupidly strict dress codes. Rakes in the sand to cover up (gasp) footprints! I don't get it.

BUT I do get that there's something to be said for anything that gives you a good excuse to spend several hours outside in nice weather, in a beautifully landscaped setting, while having a couple of beers ... and is considered a totally legitimate method of business networking. For these reasons, "learn to play golf" is the first item on my next 101-things list.

Food

Amanda and I had one of our lovely lunch dates at Chick-fil-A today, followed by a sisterly secret adventure. :) I will always be a CFA fan, but they've gone up on their prices and shrunk some of their portion sizes. (For example, the chicken-strips combo used to cost $4-something for four strips; now it costs $5-something for three strips.)

Lately I have been making a point not to throw away food at lunch. Instead, I eat as much as I want and then, as long as what's left is presentable, I wrap it up and give it away. Our town doesn't have a lot of obviously homeless people, and the first time I walked out of Jersey Mike's with half my sub, Matt and Stephen made fun of me for thinking I could find anyone who would want it. I was just worried I would offend people. But so far everyone to whom I've offered my leftovers has accepted without hesitation.

Today Amanda and I had leftover chicken nuggets and gave them to a man who actually walked up to us and asked if we had any food. That just does not happen around here -- it's never happened to me, anyway. Maybe we were looking particularly approachable or overfed today, I don't know.

This brings me to a point I've been meaning to make for a while: There are a lot of hungry people right now. Food banks are facing shortages, which is affecting the food pantries that rely on them, which is affecting a whole lot of people. A recent article in our local newspaper quoted a food-bank employee saying that every dollar donated multiplies to $8 worth of food for distribution.

Last week I was giddy about all we got for "only" a few hundred dollars at the outlets. There is no way I could honestly claim that we can't afford to give money and/or food so that fewer people in our community will be hungry at night.

This News & Observer editorial makes the case more eloquently than I do. Please read it and consider helping however you can.

----------

Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina

Three things

1. What is up with the temperature dropping 20 degrees over the course of a day? What began as a warm, sunny day has turned drizzly and gray and chilly and I am not wearing enough clothes. I went rifling through our supply closet and found an abandoned men's old-school Nautica jacket so now I am oh-so-stylishly warm.

2. Last night only five people showed up for Bible study so Meg taught us how to play Speed Scrabble. It was fun and addictive and I definitely played it in my sleep last night. In high school I went through a short phase of dreaming I was playing Minesweeper, too. Does this happen to other people?

3. I am having such a frustrating work week.

One of my closings is being held up because of a driveway that's over the property line. The next-door neighbor orally granted an easement, but he died before it was put in writing and recorded. After his death he was discovered to have a boatload of liens and judgments against him. Now his wife and child (who wasn't even born when he died) can't buy or sell or even, that's right, formally grant an easement without going through the court system, which of course is taking forever and is not cheap.

One of my sellers' contracts is being terminated today because the buyer just snapped. First she changed her mind about buying the house, then she started threatening about what would happen if she didn't get her earnest money back, and now she's creepily trying to track down where my sellers live (she was buying a house they'd been renting out). At this point, her own agent is overnighting all the cancellation paperwork back and forth from Southern Pines to Whispering Pines -- a 10-minute drive -- to avoid dealing with her in person.

Another buyer and friend who's been looking for the right condo for more than a year finally found it and planned to make an offer a few days ago. About five minutes before she was supposed to arrive at my office, the listing agent called to tell me the sellers had decided not to accept the new job that was the reason for the move so they were taking the condo off the market.

I'm trying to remember that all real estate transactions have their complications, and they always get worked out. In the scheme of things, these bumps never deserve the stress they cause.

Behind the beauty industry

For some reason, the video isn't working now. Follow this link to watch it -- it's short and well worth your time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ9IPZLPGr4

It's OK just to say

One of my pet peeves is when writers act like they aren't allowed to have anyone just "say" anything. So you have people stating, explaining, suggesting, indicating, emphasizing, sighing, even (my personal favorite) smiling their sentences.

"There is a real sense of accomplishment," smiled Smith. Oh, so he just smiled and out came that sentence? No, he said it with a smile, or better yet, he just said it. This is not sixth-grade creative writing! The article with the most sort-of synonyms for "said" does not win a prize!

It drives me out of my mind.

Seriously?

Two days ago I finally got around to listing my New York "Coach" bag on eBay. I didn't have high hopes that it would sell, considering that it was in competition with about 1,100 other black Coach purses, but I figured there was no harm in trying.

Then this morning I woke up to an email from eBay informing me that my listing has been removed because of a trademark violation. My eBay listing was pretty much identical to what I wrote about it on this blog, including that I didn't think it was real. I didn't want someone to buy it and then accuse me of trying to pass it off as authentic.

Well, according to the email I got this morning, "Sellers may not disclaim knowledge of, or responsibility for, the authenticity of the items they list on eBay. Listings for brand name items are permitted on eBay only if the seller can verify the authenticity of the item. If you cannot verify the authenticity of an item, it is not permitted on eBay."

Can you believe that? With so many fakes floating around out there, how many people can honestly guarantee the authenticity of what they're selling? Do those 1,100 other bags all come with the original sales receipt?

Plan B: sell my other fake black Coach bag (it's gotten A LOT of use and is looking pretty ragged) at the consignment store and start using the new one as my main one.

It's the principle

To Whom It May Concern:

Three friends and I recently visited your restaurant for the first time, and I’m writing to express our disappointment with the experience. While we enjoyed the live music, the atmosphere and the wine, that’s likely the last visit we’ll make.

We decided to go to Coach Light Cafe after one of our party saw advertised on your Web site “half-price wine by the glass all day Fridays.” We each ordered a glass of wine. When the bill came, we had been charged full price, and since it was a Friday – half-price-wine day – I pointed it out to our waitress.

She told me that that special had been over for a month. I told her it was still on the cafe’s Web site and in fact that was the reason we had decided to go there that night. She replied that the Web site “hasn’t even been working lately.” Which I knew was not true; I had visited it myself that day.

It came down to her word against mine. She told me she would re-ring our bill and bring it back to our table.

When she returned, she told us, “The owner would only agree to take $2 off each glass.” My glass cost $7. Half-price would have been $3.50. Instead I was charged $5. I cannot believe that the people in charge at Coach Light Cafe think that making an extra $1.50 on each of us was more important than a) having satisfied customers and b) honoring a claim on your own Web site.

Incidentally, more than a week later, this special is still advertised on the site. Let’s hope no one else takes it at face value.

I’m a small-business owner myself, and I know that no amount of advertising dollars can make up for negative word-of-mouth. This is particularly true in a small town such as ours. “The customer is always right” is usually taken to mean “... even when she’s wrong,” but in this case, I believe your customers really were in the right.

Wine whine

Last night was a girls night/guys night. I went to dinner and then to see "Juno" with Meg, Betsy and Lauren R. while Matt and the boys played poker. ("Juno" is the best movie I've seen in a long time. I HIGHLY recommend it. In fact, I liked it so much that Matt and I saw it again at today's matinee. I think that's the first time we went to the movies just the two of us in years -- we always wait for the video.)

After the movie it was not even 10 p.m. so we came back to our house to see how poker was going and have a drink or two. It turned out the games had just begun -- preceded by making dinner, which apparently took a long time: The guys had some trouble cooking canned corn(?) and ended up microwaving it. (They also grilled barbecue chicken.)

Since they were going to be awhile we decided to go back out to a new restaurant/wine bar. We had thought about going there for dinner but decided not to because we were in a slight time crunch to get to the movie on time. Meg had checked out its Web site before we met up and it said Fridays were half-price wine nights.

This was the first time I had been there and I can't decide whether I should count it as one of my 10 new local restaurants (for my list). It does serve food, but I didn't eat any. What do y'all think?

We got seated at a table right at the live music, but it ended at 11 and after that we could talk and hear each other. Eventually the place was kind of shutting down so we got our check and saw that they had not given us half off our wine. I was nominated to ask the waitress about it, and I did so very nicely.

NOT nicely, she told me that that was an old special and a new one had been in place for a month now. I asked her if she could do anything for us anyway since it was still advertised on their Web site. She told me, "Our Web site hasn't even been working lately." I told her it had been working that afternoon, one of us had looked it up and seen the half-price-wine-on-Fridays deal and that was, in fact, the reason we decided to go there. After leaning forward to confer with another employee? the owner? three feet away from me, the waitress told me she'd take care of it and re-ring the check.

So a minute later she comes back to the table saying "The owner would only agree to take $2 off each glass." What? Paying full price for a glass of wine isn't going to break anyone, but what about the principle?

All we could do was pay and leave. But as soon as we got back to the house we looked up the Web site just to see if we were right. The Web site was working fine, and lo and behold, it advertised "1/2-price wine by the glass all day Fridays." Grrr. I printed it out in case I decide to write them a letter (but I think this post is probably enough venting).

But that was just a minor annoyance and I had a great time hanging out with those girls somewhere besides Bible study. And even though we were overcharged, we came out ahead on the evening because Matt won $40 in poker. My husband is a stud!

Competition is needed

I am so frustrated with Time Warner right now. After three attempts to navigate their phone menu and then about 20 minutes on hold yesterday (elevator music interrupted every couple of minutes with a perky reminder that customer service is their top priority) I finally spoke to a human. She told me it will be seven to 10 business days before the cable can be buried, and after that's done I can call to schedule them to come out and connect our cable.

So it's easily going to be two weeks before we have Internet and TV at home. And I'd bet $50 that once we are connected they're going to try to charge us for the weeks without service. I've never had so much trouble getting a utility hooked up. I guess I should be thankful the electricity works.

We're off to Granny's for the traditional New Year's Day health-wealth-and-happiness lunch. Happy New Year!