grrgoyl

Last night I had a tiny hankering to see my favorite movie of all, Fight Club, for about the 30th time, but once I sat my ass on the couch I couldn't even muster the energy to fetch the disc. After 10 minutes of surfing channels though, what did I find but FX airing the very same? I love when that happens! It was half over and that was a bummer because I generally prefer the first half to the second, but whatever. It was their DVD-on-TV feature and I was pretty appalled when at the first commercial break they suggested running out and buying the special edition DVD, "and make sure to use your Visa card when you do!" the guy added, holding a credit card right up in extreme closeup to the camera. *sputter!* Didn't these people even SEE the movie? The whole freakin' point of it is....but I see now that had to be a tongue-in-cheek thing. Ha-ha. Good one.

It would have been nice to see without the incessant commercial breaks every 12 minutes, but other than that to my surprise the movie was left completely untouched. All of the violence, all of the gore and most of the swearing was kept intact, and that's saying something for an 8 pm timeslot. The only things they removed were every occurrence of f**k and s**t (but kept goddammit and asshole)....oh, and of course the not-quite-subliminal "nice, big cock" was taken out at the end (I arrived too late to see how they handled the first longer shot of it). (heh heh....I said "longer") For the bare minimum of censorship I salute you, FX, even though I was previously not speaking to you because your lower screen post-commercial ads during Buffy were so distracting I had to stop watching.

In other movie news, my copy of Trainspotting: The Definitive Edition was "dispatched" yesterday. Hurry, Ewan my love. I can't wait to lick that irresistible orange packaging.

It seems that everything in my life has the potential to become a full-blown saga. Or perhaps I am especially good at embellishing stories to make them appear to be sagas. You decide.

It started innocently enough. Thanks to swankyfunk's little movie-renting poll, my obsession with the best movie in all the world, Fight Club, was rekindled. I found this kickass shirt on eBay and couldn't resist. If you bother to click on the link, please take note that the auction lists all sizes available. This will become important later, trust me.

The shirt came quickly, uncharacteristically un-saga-like, but hold your horses. I had ordered a large based on the specs in the auction, forgetting that t-shirts aren't made for people with boobs. I figured it wouldn't be a big deal to exchange, because as I mentioned, all sizes were available. So I emailed the seller right away. I waited a week and heard nothing. I emailed again, getting slightly irritated. I waited about three days and emailed again, this time threatening to leave negative feedback (a paltry and often inadequate weapon against seller fraud). Still nothing. After waiting another three days or so I contacted eBay, asking for a phone number or something. I received the information today.

Quite a saga, no? Well I'm just getting started. I called the seller this morning. He admitted he had been having problems with the email he had listed on eBay (I refrained from asking why the hell he didn't fix it then). He said it was no problem to exchange as long as I was willing to pay shipping and gave me a different email to send information to. I sent a nice letter thanking him and trying to negotiate a lower shipping rate.....

(Let me talk for a minute about shipping and eBay. One of my biggest peeves is sellers trying to pad their profit by charging extortionate shipping fees. In this case I paid $5.50 when actual shipping costs were but $1.75. I realize the shipping also covers costs such as packing materials, but this was a t-shirt....no bubble wrap needed, no insurance, just the shirt and a cheap soft envelope. So I was pretty set against paying another $5.50 on top of the $3 profit already made by this guy.)


.....which was almost instantly returned to me by that beloved "mailer daemon" person. Okay, this guy doesn't even know his own email address? I called him again and he suddenly wasn't answering his phone, not a good sign. I went looking on the PayPal site and found still ANOTHER address and sent off another copy of the nice letter. Shortly thereafter I received a reply, brief, brusque to the point of rudeness. Well, you decide if it was the brevity that made it rude: "No exchanges on shirts. You were sent the size you asked for." That was the whole message. Not even an apology or the typical courtesy one associates (occasionally) with customer service. Okay, stoic AND schizophrenic. What the HELL was up with this guy? I immediately responded, equally briefly, "I just spoke with you on the phone and you said I could exchange it. What's the deal?" He replied, "You spoke with my partner. He's on a trip to Ireland. If he said you could exchange it I will honor that. Please pay additional $5.50 for shipping." Now I could see what all the extra shipping costs were paying for, and I wasn't much in the mood to finance his partner's next vacation in Europe. I sent back "I've already paid $5.50 for shipping, which was only $1.75. Give me your address and I will send a self-addressed stamped envelope with the returned shirt." He wrote back again, "Yeah, whatever..... $5.50 for one shirt, $2.50 for each additional shirt" followed by all his PayPal information where I could send my money. Okay, clearly this guy isn't used to dealing with the customer relations end of the business. "Yeah, whatever...."? Can anyone who has ever dealt with any kind of customer at all in the history of the world picture themselves saying, "Yeah, whatever...." to them (and get away with it)?? By this time I was so riled up my hands were shaking. I was poised to tell this guy exactly where he could stick his "additional $5.50," but I kept most of my cool and wrote back, "I've already paid the $5.50. By your logic, I should only be paying $2.50. You want me to pay $10+ to ship an $8 t-shirt?" I sat there, quivering, shaking, waiting for the final blow that would make me completely terminate all communication with this guy and write a complaint to eBay. I wasn't expecting his next mail, though...."I said to do what you just said, send a self-addressed envelope to this address" yadda yadda yadda.

At this point I have to appeal to the jury. Lord knows I have been guilty on more than one occasion of overreacting to a misunderstanding and blowing things way out of proportion. I went back and read and re-read the famous "Yeah, whatever...." mail (including all the paying information) and tried to see how I could have misconstrued that. Help me out here? I didn't see it, and answered only, "Sorry. Must have been all the 'send your money here' info that confused me." I hope the sarcasm came through, though him being in California, my hopes aren't high (no offense to Californians, but most people on this coast don't seem to get sarcasm. Although I reluctantly admit his rudeness is more characteristic of East Coasters.) Fortunately that was the last of the communication or my head might very well have exploded.

I went to Office Depot for some soft envelopes and I plan to mail it back tomorrow. The saga might not even be over yet. A whole world of things could go wrong in the mailing process, but there we are. The first irony is that a package of 5 envelopes (couldn't find any singles) plus shipping will cost more than $5.50, but it is the principle of the thing you see, and at least I'll have some extra envelopes to show for it. The second irony is my hero in the movie, Tyler Durden, would disapprove vehemently of all this rampant consumerism in the first place. Cuz the things we own end up owning us. Sorry, Tyler.

-=Lainey=-