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This is a post where you can come to share what’s on your mind and stay for the expansion. The diarist is on California time and gets to take a nap when he needs to, or may just wander off and show up again later. So you know, it's a feature, not a bug.
Grab your supportive indulgence(s) of choice and join us, please. And if you’re brand new to Morning Open Thread, then Hail and Well Met, new Friend.
When my apartment mate Rick’s old (very old, cathode ray tube) television finally gave up its electrons to the Great Anode in the Sky, no problem, buy a new one. Time also to buy a nice shelf table to put it on. The big packing crate the old t.v. was sitting on worked fine, yes, but bedroom aesthetics and all that.
So I ordered a shelf table that looked nice, was the right size and height, and wasn’t horribly expensive. Didn’t take more than a few days to arrive. No tools needed for assembly.
Whee! Here it is, get busy.
This ought to be easy.
Remove all the parts, sort them out, and follow instructions.
Even a cat could do it.
Four shelves, twelve posts to separate the shelves. Four long posts, eight short posts. Threaded joints; the upper post just screws into the post underneath.
Except…
I get sent one wrong part.
I was furious. There’s no way to modify the wrong part to fit without destroying it. I can’t just leave the post out. The table would not hold together with the television on top. What to do, what to do? Ah! Innovate, my lad. Find something that’s the right length to prop the space. A small cardboard box perhaps. Rats, none of the little boxes I saved were quite the right size. So, I remembered I had just tossed something in the trash that just might work. Salvation! By peanut butter jar. And a bit of the packaging material to bridge the final gap and make it all fit snugly.
Having found a solution, funky though it was, I found my equanimity returning and with it the ability to reason. Perhaps there was a way to contact the manufacturer and get a correct replacement part. See, this is why one shouldn’t go hurtling off the deep end of frustration and anger.
There’s the number to call, right there.
For reasons I’ll not delve into (o.k., I just procrastinated and put it off; the jury-rig was working, after all) I didn’t call right away. When I finally did the customer service folks were just grand and they got a new part shipped right away. Took nine days to get here, but when it did all I needed was five minutes to make it right. Et voila!
The way it’s supposed to be.
The lesson of the story I guess, if there is one, is don’t go flying off the handle and get your knickers all in a twist over the small stuff. Got a problem? Seek a solution. Turning the air all blue, like I did when I saw that I didn’t receive the correct parts, is not productive. The answer to my problem was right there, included with my problem, i.e. call the number for customer service as provided on the instruction sheet. But nooooo, I’ve got to get all pissed off and swear and fume first. Wish I wasn’t that way. You’d think that one of these days I’d learn my lesson.
How about you folks? Ever have something like this happen to you? How did you deal with it?
What else is on your mind this morning?
