Look at the picture above. Now let me tell you that I'm about as scatterbrained as anybody gets. Now let me tell you that for Christmas this year, I received many, many gift certificates.
Can you already tell where this is going?
My sister and her husband and my friend Meg all gave me gift cards to Aveda. Knowing that I am likely to misplace things or forget entirely that I have them, I reported directly to Aveda at 0900 hours on the day after Christmas to spend the gift certificates and thus eliminate the possibility of misplacing them.
I did the same with my gift certificate to Stop and Shop.
I was also working my way diligently through a Dunkin Donuts gift card.
Several other certificates (iTunes, two other grocery stores, taxi cab company) were stored safely away in my apartment.
On New Year's Eve, knowing that Stephen and I were going out, but uncertain of where exactly our travels through the city would take us, I decided to bring along my two Target gift cards, my Borders books gift card, and another Dunkin Donuts card.
Our travels did, indeed, take us to Borders Book Store, where, being the avid reader that I am, I had absolutely no problems exhausting the value of that card.
We came back to Stephen's place after that and I thought no further of the gift cards. This morning, however, I went to retrieve my Target cards, thinking it might be a nice idea to walk down there and see what was cooking.
Holy Sh*#!t!! The cards were not in my purse at all! I started to retrace my steps. I had thrown some paper items in the trash last night. Maybe I inadvertently threw them away? I took a quick look through the top of my trash. Nothing materialized.
I looked all through the bags, purses, jackets that I had had anywhere near Stephen's place over the weekend. Nothing.
I called Stephen and he broke the news that he had already put his trash out. Not a big deal if you live in a house, but he lives in a huge apartment building near a college campus and you can just imagine the state of the shared trash dumpster behind the building on the first weekday after the New Year's weekend.
But, being the sport that he is, he went out and tried to find it anyway. Nothing.
In the meanwhile, convinced that I hadn't combed thoroughly enough through my trash, I literally dumped it out on the counter, rolled up my sleeves, and swam through endless piles of mango skins, scallion tips, and other lovely and fragrant items.
Again...nothing.
I was frantic. The total value of the gift cards was about 30 dollars. If I had lost something that I bought for myself, I probably wouldn't have been half as upset about it. But the though that all these people had gone out and spent their money on a gift for me made me sick.
Stephen called me back and suggested that if the bookstore was the last place I remembered having the cards, I should call them up and see if anybody had located and turned them in.
Yeah right!
Reluctantly, and with a great sense of skepticism, I called the store and described my dilemma to the woman who answered the phone. I described the envelope containing the gift cards, and surprisingly enough, the woman was actually a real human being with a brain and said that she would go check the store safe. I mean, a lot of times, you call these places, and the people answering the phone don't give a crap because they are not paid enough to give a crap, so they pretend to go look for something, placing you on hold while they're out back taking swigs of Gilby's vodka from their flask in the employee breakroom. Within a cople of minutes, the woman came back to the phone and asked me if I could describe the contents of the envelope, telling her specifically which gift cards were in there. I told her that at least one of them was a Target card given "to:Auntie", "from: Allie" with the memo, "Happy Target Trashing!" With that, the woman confirmed that they had my envelope of gift cards.
I REPEAT...THEY HAD THE GIFT CARDS!!!!!! somebody found them and actually turned them in! What does that tell us about humanity?? People are actually good!! I can rest more easily at night knowing that people are inherently good! Either that or the person who found my Dunkin Donuts gift card is a Starbucks snob who, upon realizing that half caf soy lattes are no available at Dunks, decided to turn in the gift cards rather than have them occupying space in their Coach tote.
Anyway, in any event, I'm uplifted, and will be marching down to Target, first chance I get, to spend those gift cards and make sure they can't get lost again!!
To anybody to gave me one of the gift cards I lost, I sincerely apologize and I hope you can forgive me!
5 comments:
That is a truly uplifting story! A miracle, really, all things considered. Wow.
I'm glad to hear things worked out okay. I am so scatterbrained, I lost stuff all the time, so I completley can relate. That would have been a bummer not to find them. There are angels amoung us, but they tread far and few between. I was in line yesterday also spending $100 dollars in gift cards on groceries. I too lose stuff, so I bought a bunch of meat, repackaged all of it, and froze it. However, the story is never that easy. The gift cards were visa's that you have to activate. The girl at the counter could not get either to work. After 15 minutes of getting frusterated, I asked her to please call a manager. The manager finally came over, all the while as people lined up behind me with their many items. (You would think due to the blinking light that they would have lined up else where.) Anyhow the manager comes over all perky and excited about the cards. She exclaimed, "Oh there is a trick, I just learned how to do them today!" I guess the card has to be entered at the exact amount, one of them was $50 however the other was $41.36. I had no idea the exact amount on the card because I useed it at BlockBuster to get a few movies. So she kept entering random amounts. Typically I would apologize to the people behind me, cus it is just how I am, but I was in a bit of a pissy mood, it's that time of the month, so I felt hmm, not gonna! Finally I call the gift card 800 number to get the balance, whoolah, it works. She slides them both through, no problem. This was over a 35 minute period. The ending balance being around 20 something I put on my debit. The third lady in line who got in line after the blinking light starts bitching. I hear "Anyday now, anyday now!" Over and over in a sarcastic tone. Then she gets on her cell and starts screaming in Spanglish that she has to wait cus some "bitch"has to use a shit load of cards. This really angered me. But of course, because I am meak, I say nothing, I only give her a scowl. She didnt have to get in that line, and if I have gift cards I have every right to use them. It was not my fault the girl couldn't do it. So, sorry to ruin the little faith we have left in people, but in Tampa, people are still be-otches!
Nancy, I hope you will be purchasing either one of the seasons of Little House on DVD (you can watch with Lauren and I'll pay a visit to heckle), or to buy one of those toy phones that records your voice...I hear some people have been returning them though because all Christmas morning their children would press the button and some unruly voice would scream "JERK!!"
Reesie, I'm sorry you encontered that horrible, unspeakable problem with the toy phone from Target. Imagine the heartless person who rigged those toys to viciously scream "JERK" at the listener! Some people....
I almost didn'y buy that gift card because of Nancy's history with loosing things. I am glad that you found it. That was god's way of telling you to buy the season 9 of little dump!
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