It's a Parade!

Warning, heavy photo post.

Warning #2, photos taken with crappy cell phone.

Now on with the show.

Saturday was the next town over Christmas parade. 

Since we live about 2 mins from the town we took in the show.

What a show it was.

Check out the horse drawn carriage.

 For those who have been with my blog for away & have heard me talk about "The Mummers" here they are.

Well one band anyway.

Grown men, dressing up and "strutting" down the street.

It's a big to-do in the Philadelphia area.

Trust me.

 Who is this?

Wait a minute!

This is the adorable, yet overly hyperactive, son of mine.

This is really the only time he stood still.

Well that & when he dumped chocolate milk all over my tushie.

Don't ask!

 OOOH! A float!

 Or two!

 More Mummers!

Just so you know, women were only recently let in the Mummers.

It was exclusively men for years.

It was prob. in the last 20 yrs that women could join.

 Cheeks was confused why the men were wearing skirts.

This is the "Emerald Society."

Irish Bagpippers, not Scottish.

 I have no idea how Frosty didn't melt.

It was about 62 degrees outside.

Completely foreign for this time of year!

 The Collingswood High School Marching Band.

Bringing in you know who!

 There he is!

The big man himself.

So that's what we did this weekend, what did you do?

Customer Service: Good vs. Evil

For those of you who have read my blog know I work in customer service, so I expect a bit more than average when I call places.

I didn’t expect this though.

Today I had to do a return for The Grandpop. 

He bought me a Nook Color for Xmas.  The next day the Nook Color Tablet came out, so he got me that & decided to return the Nook Color.

The Grandpop purchased it from a third party seller on Amazon.

This is where the issue comes into play.

Being the dutiful daughter that I am, I went under his account & filled out the required request form to return.

Reason for return: “Do not want”

I was then to wait for a response from the third party seller.

About an hour goes by when I get an irate Grandpop on the phone.

The seller responded alright.

In his email to The Grandpop he stated “Buyer's remorse is not a legitimant reason for returning something. You bought it, you own it. If you don't want it, sell it.”

Well isn’t that a fine how’do you do?

The Grandpop requested I handle this with Amazon.

I gladly excepted because I had visions of the Grandpop doing the Army crawl into the sellers place of business and going all postal on his tushie.

Not a pretty picture!

I called Amazon, got the sweetest guy on the phone who was flabbergasted that this seller responded in such a way.

The Amazon rep told me “We are going to lay the hammer of justice down on him!

He filed a claim with their A –Z department who will contact the seller, inform him that he is to comply with Amazon’s return policy and see how it goes.  If the seller doesn’t comply, he will be kicked off Amazon.

Now the waiting starts.

It can take up to 2 weeks.

The Amazon rep can’t guarantee we will get all our money back but we well take what we can get even with a  restock  fee.

It’s only right.

On the good side (besides the awesome Judson at Amazon) was my experience with the Mattel Corp. today.

They were having a great sale on something that Santa wanted to pick up.

Well one of the items was the Buzz Lightyear Space Command Center.

It did not come with action figures but I needed to find out if the ones that were available would fit in this toy.

So I called their customer service dept.

The gentlemen spent about 10 minutes with me  going over the sizes of the action figures to make sure they’d fit.

He even offered to connect me to a dept that just measures what toys go with what.

After some researching we came to an agreement that yes, the toy action figures would fit.

So I ordered but not after asking him if he knew of a free shipping code.

He didn’t but I ordered anyway.

Later in the day, while blog reading, I see there is a code for free shipping with a  purchase of $25 or more.

I spent way more than $25 so I thought, I cancel & reorder.

Well I couldn’t find my order to cancel so I called Mattel.

I got Kirk on the phone.

Kirk, if you are reading this, you totally rock!

Kirk took the code, tried to apply but couldn’t.

He put in a request for me to get my shipping refunded after the order invoices.

Between the first gentleman & Kirk at Mattel I will highly recommend doing business with just them.

Talk about awesome customer service.

The third party seller at Amazon could learn a thing or two from Mattel.

That’s all I got.

My day of good vs evil.

How about you?

What do you have to share today?

Babble, babble, babble....

Not much to report on the home front.  Things are still the same.
Well not really the same but nothing exciting.

Cheeks behavior is still the same.
Principal every day.
Every day.
Sigh.
We started the process in September of getting him help.
It has yet to officially start.
We had a therapist come out twice.
She let me know the other day that she got a full time job & a new therapist would be coming out.  Fabulous, maybe this one will actually start "talking" with Cheeks.  Since the first two times the first one came out it was all paperwork.

The behavioralist was scheduled to come out last week.
She canceled about an hour before because she has not received paperwork yet.

Nothing like working with the state, eh?

Besides that Bobster is working like a dog.  Last weekend we were fortunate to go up to The Poconos to see him over night.  His hotel has an indoor pool, a highlight for the 5yo.  He's down the street from some outlets, a highlight for me!  It was some nice family time for us without all the distractions of "home."

Who can believe Thanksgiving is Thursday?
Holy cannoli, how did it get to be that time of year?
Aunt Erin is cooking this year.
Whew!
Thank goodness.
I'd rather just bake my way through dinner.
Perhaps next year I will make a cake resembling a turkey & call it a day. 

That was enough babble for now, I am outty!

Please no photos!

Yours truly, little ole me, is featured in this months All You magazine!

Hello!
Tis true.

I am famous now.

Tell me, have you ever been featured in a magazine?

I'm very excited!!!

Introducing the Autobot Family

Dear Joan

I just wanted to let you know that you have nothing on me in the child rearing department.

Apparently, while trying to discipline my son by telling him he had to hold my hand I angered him.

I would not let go of his hand all the while he pulled & yanked himself silly.

I never raised my voice.

I never put my hand on my child.

I just kept calmly telling him that he needed to stand still & listen.

My neighbor, witnessing it all, asked my son "Why are you giving your mom a hard time?"

My son's response "I hate her"

Yes, Joan, I have risen in the ranks like yourself.

Merely by trying to calmly discipline him.

I handed him over to my neighbor (who coincindently walks him to school), fled to my mini van & proceeded to cry.

Some tell me if my son tells me he hates me then I am doing a good job as a parent.

Doesn't matter.

It still hurt.

You however Joan, as much as I jest in this letter to you, well you really are a bad parent no matter how you look at it.

Sincerly,

Meghan

Confession to make

Not sure if you all want to hear this or not.

It's nothing like, I killed 35 people & buried them in my grandparents old house's basement (the stench is from the dog they used to have...yea that's it...the dog!) or I used to dance on a pole for money & I went by the name of "Tuesday Tata's"...I was young, I need the money.

It's more along the lines of something I am ashamed of, as if the above things wouldn't be enough, again didn't do either of them.

I am ashamed of being divorced.
Whew I said it.
I feel like this, a lot:

If only I was that skinny.

Anywho, don't think that I wish I was still married to that person.
I don't.

For those that have known me "on line" for years or for those that know me in real life, know I was blindsided by the whole "I want a divorce" that he said.

Believe you me, he did me a huge favor b/c now I have a great guy & fabulous children!!!

It's just that I feel, even after all these years, that I failed.
Like if I had done this or that it wouldn't have happened.

I can't really explain it.
I don't like to say I'm divorced.

I know people are.
I know it's not considered a rare thing anymore.

I just can't explain it & I finally admitted yesterday to my coworker, who herself has been divorced.

Perhaps I'm just feeling sorry for myself...it is pms week or maybe I just need therapy...either way I wanted to confess.

So there ya have it!