Thursday, December 21, 2006

Evil cats and even more evil online bookstores

I suspect one of my cats, Cairo, is evil--pure evil, I tell you. She's always been haughty and prissy and easily pissed off, but those traits are typically feline, I think. I first wondered about her evil nature when Kevin's kids started coming over for weekends. Cairo took an instant dislike to them and used to lie in wait for them to walk down the hall or up the stairs, and then pounce on them, hissing like a possessed she-devil. As the kids ran screaming in the other direction, I could almost swear I heard her chuckling "Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Look at this evil thang:

Lately, she's taking to skulking around my office, but not to be near me. No, she's waiting for an opportunity to steal Charlie's bed. Last night, she'd been hogging his bed almost all evening, and I was getting ready to leave my office for the night. I tried to shoo her out gently so that she wouldn't be trapped in my office for the night, but she wouldn't budge. Finally, I tipped the bed over and dumped her unceremoniously on the floor. She gave me a look of hatred and ran off.

A few minutes later, I settled down on the couch to watch TV. Holly, my beagle, was snoring happily on the loveseat, when suddenly I heard her scramble to her feet and start snarling. I looked over but didn't see anything that would have upset her. Bad dream, I figured. A few minutes later, the same thing happened, and I looked over in time to see Cairo swatting Holly on the nose! She knew waking Holly up was mean, and she was getting back at me, the little devil. You should have seen the smug look she gave me when I scolded her. As I was telling Kevin this morning, my other cat, Picard, at least manages to look ashamed when I scold him and most of the time just radiates sweetness:

I'm telling you, that Cairo is a bad seed.

******

I'm so mad at Barnes & Noble's online store, I could just spit. I ordered most of Kevin's Christmas presents online December 6. Two items would be shipped within 24 hours, and one within one to two weeks, according to B&N. Even if shipping took two weeks, I had plenty of time before Christmas--or so I thought. Last night, I realized I hadn't gotten anything from B&N, so I checked my order status online. To my dismay, the report said all three items wouldn't be shipped until December 22 and would take three to eight days to arrive!

I called the customer service number and after hanging up on one rep who said snottily, "Well, there's nothing I can do for you," and then put me on hold for seven minutes, I finally got a supervisor. BIG waste of time. He couldn't get his story straight, first telling me item #1 was out of stock, which is what held up my order. I asked why the site said nothing about the item being out of stock at the time I ordered it and why the other two items weren't shipped, and he stuttered a little and then said item #2 was out of stock. I asked what he could ship NOW, and he said item #2. Uh. I said "Didn't you just tell me that item's out of stock?" No, he claimed, it was item #3 that was out of stock.

About at the end of my rope, I asked "Well, what CAN you ship me now?" He said item #1 (the one he originally said was out of stock). "Fine," I said. "Can you ship it overnight?" Here's the conversation that ensued:

"I'll expedite shipment," he said evasively.

"That's not what I asked you. Can you ship it out overnight tomorrow?"

"Yes, it will take one to two business days."

"That's not overnight. Can you guarantee it will get here Saturday?"

"Well." Long pause. "No, I can't."

"Fine. Cancel my entire order."

Jesus H. Christmas! Amazon at least has the good sense to display a warning in big red letters next to an item: "This item cannot be guaranteed to arrive by Christmas." And B&N claims it's rated the number-one online bookseller?? Hmmmmph. Well, I'll never use B&N's online store again, but now I have to go out among the hordes of crazed last-minute shoppers to find the same items or something comparable so that Kevin doesn't have a sucky Christmas. I am not a happy camper. Bah, humbug!