Anyone who knows me knows that I really, really dislike Wal Mart. I dislike their corporate model, I dislike their business practices, I dislike their stores, I can go on. Anyone who knows Adam will substitute the word “hate” for “dislike.” We have a Wal Mart less than a mile from our house and we will pass that Wal Mart to go to K-Mart. Frankly, we would rather spend a little more and go to Target - we LOVE Target. Not sure why because it also has the big box concept. Maybe the color red appeals to us, I don’t know. Still, if we have to go to a Wal Mart, we will pass ours up and go to one in another city. That’s how much we like the Wal Mart right by us.
Now that I established our utter dislike for Wal Mart to those who didn’t already know… now I have a confession to make…are you sitting?… We decided to buy a swing set from Wal Mart ONLINE and placed the order a week and a half ago. See, when you are getting down to the wire, and realizing the time of year that our kids are coming home, do the adoption experts really expect us to spend our bonding time indoors? While Adam is usually the one who meticulously researches products, I decided to take the reins on this and find the perfect swing set for the right price, which I did, except that it was at the dreaded Wal Mart. We’re proud, but not too proud, so the order was made. I was kind of impressed with the “ship to store” feature where we don’t pay for shipping. Some of my cold feelings towards Wal Mart could be thawing a little, maybe. Yea right.
Well, I was so meticulous in finding the right swing set that I forgot to figure out how it was going to be installed. Adam went back to work tonight for 14 days straight (10 hour days). By the time he finishes that, we are leaving. Uh oh. Lucky for us, I have an uncle who is good at such things, and he happened to be between jobs. He just did a lot of work on my sister’s new house in the city, and did a fantastic job. I called him last Monday and e-mailed him the information from Wal Mart’s website. I had noted that the reader comments said it was a fantastic swing set, but it was a lot of work to install. Last Friday he called to confirm we were still doing this, and that thankfully, he will be called back to work in a couple of weeks. Just one problem. Swing set was supposed to be in last Thursday. So, I did some checking and found out that the swing set was to come in 3 boxes, but that 1 of the boxes was missing/lost/broken (depending on which e-mail I got - there were many), and they were going to credit me for the one box. Why not all three? So, I e-mail Wal Mart customer service and all they would tell me to do was to cancel the order and re-order it. However, they would give me 15% off the price if I order ship to store, or they would waive the shipping if I have it shipped to home. Ok, Adam is working midnights, it will probably come in during the day while he’s sleeping, can’t afford to take off any more from work… Oh yea, and we are leaving in a little more than 2 weeks. Further, my uncle got called back to work. I actually gave Wal Mart a sob story hoping they would rush the shipping a bit? No luck, but since I placed the re-order tonight, that remains to be seen.
Being it was the best swing set I could find for the price, I re-ordered it. I also posted my frustration on Facebook, and was quite humbled at all the comments I got and offers of help - thanks, guys. One way or another, our kids are going to get a swing set. I still really dislike Wal Mart.
On another note, I’ve finally gone through all the clothes I bought the last few weeks at yard sales, and have washed them and put them away. I think we did really well. I’m still going to buy them some new clothes, but I don’t think we have to buy as much as we thought we would. Aman is going to be styling at the swimming pool. He’s got maybe 6 pairs of swimming trunks from Polo, Gymboree, Gap, etc. A few pairs of shorts I saw at yard sales that I thought were cute were actually swimming trunks!
We got some more new pictures a week ago. Check them out on our website.
Wednesday is our travel meeting, and hopefully we’ll find out then that our Visa date is confirmed, so we can go ahead and finalizing booking the trip. Since I’m taking a half day off, I might hit more yard sales that morning.
One of us will update again after our meeting on Wednesday.