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electric snide
01/05/2006 = 04:12 PM

The following annoyance was more than made up for by its recognition as Hogwash of the Day for January 13th, 2006, and also as Hogwash of the Week Ending January 20th, 2006.

I ordered something online from a department store. I won't say which store. Using Victor Borge's inflationary language (increasing everything by one), let us just refer to said store as "K.D. Tuppence."

Last week, I received an email from K.D. Tuppence saying that my order had shipped, and giving me a link by which to track the package. The link went to their "order status" page, which repeated that my order had shipped, but contained no actual tracking information. I went back to the order status site daily thereafter, to see if this had been updated, and finally, yesterday, joy, in the form of a VQT (which either stands for Very Quick Transit or is just another example of inflationary language at work) tracking number.

I clicked on the tracking number link and it redirected me to the VQT page, which said my package had been delivered and signed for.

To North Carolina, which was, when last seen, nowhere near Connecticut.

In September of 2004, which was, when last seen, nowhere near January of 2006.

I wrote a polite email to K.D. Tuppence customer service, asking if I could please have a more accurate tracking number, as the one they had provided on my order was not actually for my order, but for an order that was over a year old and had long ago been delivered, signed for, opened, and used by its owner, a resident of North Carolina.

K.D. Tuppence customer service replied, rather snidely, that all orders take four to seven business days to ship and to be patient; if it hadn't arrived after that time period, I could contact them again.

I did not bother to reply that it wasn't impatience that had motivated me, but rather the erroneous tracking number for a package that, according to K.D. Tuppence, had already shipped anyway. I just wanted to know when to expect it.

I'd like to say that the reason I didn't bother to reply was that I was offended by their use of "contact" as a verb, but it'd be a lie. I like "contact" as a verb, because it's an interesting and useful revamp of an existing word. I don't accept "irregardless," because it is a nonexistent word that means the same as both "irrespective" and "regardless" and serves no other purpose. But I digress.

The actual reason I didn't bother to reply is that I didn't want K.D. Tuppence to get their snide on with me again. The last thing I need at the end of a day already fraught with disrespect is to be on the receiving end of snide-itude from someone to whom I have given my hard-earned money.

And now ... the punchline:

When I got home from work yesterday, there was a notice from VQT saying they had tried to deliver a package from K.D. Tuppence, but no one was home, so they were taking it back to the local depot for redelivery.

Of course, I could have arranged either to be there or to schedule it for a willcall at the depot, had K.D. Tuppence a) provided the correct VQT tracking number to begin with and b) provided said number somewhat earlier than the actual delivery date, but that's neither here nor there nor anywhere else good and pure in the universe.

That Man of Mine is working from home today, so he will sign for my swag when it arrives, and I will be done with K.D. Tuppence, at least in a home delivery sense. Because they've got their slogan wrong.

It's all in snide.

drinking: strawberry fruit₂o
listening to: nothing
daily latin: caveat emptor