Past Shop

 A little consumer rant for today? Well, you’re getting it anyway!

I was oh so proud of myself and giddy with anticipation. On December 25th I decided to take the plunge and buy a new washer and dryer for myself, replacing the small apartment-sized ones a friend gave to me when he moved out of town that had themselves been purchased used. You see, I have had some problems of late with the washer (sometimes I have to help it work up to the final spin so as not to end up with clothes that I had to wring out and dry forever) and with the dryer (a scary noise that has made me reluctant to use it again for a couple of weeks now).

A chance e-mail from a retailer about their fabulous end of year sales (I’ll leave you to guess which retailer that might be) and I fell upon a lovely duo of front-loading machines (not as novel for the dryer as for the washer) in what they described as “liquid silver”. Fabulous! I called my Dad to see if he thought the pedestals were necessary (they are just storage drawers; he said no) and then I placed my order online. I even called them part way through the order to ask about the recycling option (take away my old machines for a fee and recycle them) and after much searching on their part, I was told that that could be worked out once I got my delivery notice. “Fine!” thought I, and proceeded to the checkout, where I was greeted with the usual credit card options and a flashy “PayPal now accepted” button. I went for the PayPal, which charges my credit card when I make a purchase, but it was marginally easier, having only the password to fill out and having my delivery information automatically supplied to the retailer. I went to bed dreaming of my lovely new machines and oh, the laundry I’d be doing!

The next day, I woke up to the delivery notice e-mail, proposing the last day of my time off as the delivery date, which suited me just fine. It was also my opportunity to work out the details on that recycling option. Not having a car (or a truck) or being physically capable of wrestling my old appliances down my stairs to be trashed by the city’s large item garbage collection, this recycling thing was a truly necessary part of the whole deal, and it promised to make me feel better about the disposition of the old machines, even if not actually certain they would be re-used or taken apart for their useful components.

The e-mail had little clickable buttons, including one for the recycling option, additional fee of $30 per item. Fine! I clicked for naught. It seems that the link brings up a “mail to” window which doesn’t really work when one uses webmail exclusively. Never mind! There’s a helpful toll-free number to call — all will surely be worked out!

Are you beginning to suspect that all did not work out? Clever you! The first person on the phone brought up the file of my transaction and sadly announced to me that I couldn’t choose the recycling option because I had paid by PayPal.

Me: “What? How about if I pay for the recycling in a second transaction, on my credit card if you prefer?”

Customer “service” rep: “Sorry, but our system won’t allow me to do that.”

(A couple more tries on my part to work that out, to no avail, then I asked for the supervisor.)

Supervisor: “Sorry, but our system won’t allow me to do that.”

Me: “You’re going to throw away a $2,000 sale for a $60 recycling fee that I’m offering to pay for on my credit card?”

Supervisor: “There’s nothing I can do about that. The system won’t allow it.”

So a rigid system trumps a sale. Let’s just say that the sale is now cancelled. And while they managed to charge my credit card (through PayPal) within hours of my placing the order, the refund will take up to a week, and maybe a few more days before it appears in my credit card account. The quick automated call about how satisfied I was with my exchanges with customer service probably won’t be earning anyone a bonus this year, either.

My dreams of getting this accomplished during the holiday break are over, and my motivation to do the preparation for having these new appliances in my apartment has evaporated. Don’t even let me remember that this is the same retailer that I had to visit several times to accomplish the purchase of a television a few years ago, even ending up with a radio (there was no picture) the first time around.

So bah humbug to you — uh — Past Shop!

Spill it, milk company!

Unsatisfying doesn’t quite cover it. Annoying either. I would have to say that the recall of certain milk products that I heard about this morning on my radio, then on the television, then on the internet, left me feeling frustrated.

What I found in the company’s press release (by the way NOT published on their web site!) was a vague and unsatisfying direction to not consume certain products (best before dates and other identifiers included), but not explaining why. I wasn’t just driven by curiosity in all of this. No, I had just finished my breakfast with a lovely cold glass of milk and was starting to drink my morning coffee, again with milk. A quick check of the best before date and the other code confirmed that this was indeed the milk being recalled.

The problem for me is not just that I had already consumed two of the three bags of milk in the 4-litre milk pack that I had bought last week. The bigger problem is that my immune system is rather fragile and I haven’t received any indication of what might have been the problem. Should I be proactively seeking some kind of treatment to avoid bad effects of this product which “did not meet your quality standards” (from the press release). Come clean and tell us what the problem was and you will help me rebuild my trust of your product.

Oh, and your direction for me to return it to my store for a refund? Useless. I’m not willing to dig through my recycling bin to try to retrieve what might have been the receipt for it and then cart it all the way back to the store, hoping that they will refund me for an incomplete return. No, I snapped the picture above and then I dumped it. I hope the thing you are keeping from us is not something that will damage the environment as it works its way through the city’s treatment facilities.

The Flavour of Clean

Have you noticed the evolution of household cleaning products, and specifically the aromas that differentiate them from one another (or try to)? I'm not talking about "Windswept Tundra" or "Babbling Brook" or anything that is really betting more on the images. I'm talking about the ones that could well be flavours.

In the olden days (when I was young and many of my employees were not yet born), the smell of clean was all about the pine. This was not something I necessarily understood, growing up in a pretty rural area with lots of trees, many of which were pines. For me, if you smelled like pine, it meant that you probably got some pitch on you, and that was anything but clean.



Then of course I saw this campaign on the internet and a whole new level of dirty became associated with pine. (The company has moved on to a much more boring and wholesome approach to seeling its products, but luckily some remnants of the fun one remain available on YouTube.)

Next, as surely as fresh vegetables grown in far away places started to be available in my home town's grocery store, lemons burst upon the scene. At first it was just the furniture polish (does anyone use that anymore?), but it quickly moved on to dishwashing liquid, laundry soap and even floor cleaners. Why, even our old pine-based friend got in on the act…

And if one citrus says clean, why not another? Oranges everywhere! Grapefruit! Specifically pink grapefruit! I have had all of those in dishwashing liquids and I have to confess that I do appreciate the association of citrus with cleaning, especially the citrus that you can eat without being one of those wacky people who eats lemons. Oh, and guess what? Our old piney friend came out in orange, too!

Industry knows, though, that you flash-in-the-pan flavour of the decade will not last, and there were more avenues to be explored in the produce section. What could be more wholesome than apples? And particularly green apples, which almost reek of clean, if you will pardon the mixed metaphor. Oddly enough, our tree-hugging original-flavoured cleaner doesn't seem to have hopped aboard this wagon, but many others have.

My most amusing experience, however, was what spurred me to write this in the first place. Just as the fresh vegetables from far away places were followed into my hometown grocery store by thirteen kinds of mushrooms and fruits that we don't recognize fresh because we have been so used to seeing them dried, along comes the newest flavour of clean.

Oh yes, it's pomegranate. I'm almost speechless.

Discovery

I had a lovely lunch and shopping trip in Outremont with my friend Maychai today.

We had lunch at the lovely Steak Frites, although we were both good and had salads (hers with duck, mine with grilled shrimp) and then I tossed all caution to the wind and had a lovely molten chocolate cake for dessert with our lovely double espressos allongés.

But the discovery came before lunch, as we shopped. We went into Gourmet Laurier and I found out that the rumours were true! One can find Orangina Rouge on this side of the Atlantic! And TUC LU crackers, too! And here is the proof:

Does this mean that I will stop sending my employees on missions possibles when they have meetings to attend in France? No. After all, they're going anyway and even with the exchange the price I found here was a bit steep.

Still, it is comforting to know that, in a pinch, I can satisfy my beverage needs without shelling out for a plane ticket to Paris.

Damned. Lucky.

I was on a crazy consumer high, trying to make sure that I got all of my shopping out of the way before tomorrow, which is Buy Nothing Day. (Yes, I know that Canada and Québec are to be found in North America, but there's that crazy Canadian thing about differentiating ourselves from our closest neighbours, so I'm pretty sure it's scheduled for tomorrow here.)

My plans were set. Go spend that gift card I received and a little more of my own money on something else, go to the bank machine to deposit and pay bills, then take out some cash for the rest of my shopping plans tonight. I dutifully left the bank machine quickly, as there was someone waiting, went to load my transit card with my December fare, and moved on for more.

The next plan I had to revise, as I was going to go spend another gift certificate I received as a lovely parting gift from my former job, but I realized part way there that the gift certificate was still in my apartment. Drat! Would I have to spend that tomorrow? Maybe Sunday...

Still more shopping. Yogurt and a couple of impulse items at the fruit store. I got to the cash and — surprise! Something was missing:

Yes, as I repeated in my head "Stupid, stupid, stupid...", I realised that I had beaten such a hasty retreat from the bank machine that I had left my card inside for the person who was in line behind me.

I rushed back with as much poise and dignity as I could muster. I broke out the other bank card I have in my wallet to open the door (the magnetic stripe opens the door) and went inside with great trepidation. Would I have to call the bank to explain my stupidity and then wait who knows how long for a new card? Would I discover that the person behind me had conducted a few transactions?

There, atop the machine, was a card. Grab. Insert. Enter PIN. Yes, it was mine. Next test: ask for printout of recent transactions. Only the ones I had done. My trust in my fellow humans has once again been confirmed to a degree that only Pollyanna might expect.

Damned. Lucky.

Girth Day!

Okay, not very environmentally correct, but I went shopping on Earth Day. At least it was a charity event — Au coeur de la mode, for a foundation funding AIDS charities — but the karmic moment came when I got home and tried on my two silk shirts (for only $40!): a bit snug both! Now I shall also have to lose weight to wear my lovely purchases, apart from working on improving my overall health.

Tragic!