Sigh...I’m a woman and as a woman, I love shoes so when a friend of mine told me about this online shoe store with awesome looking shoes, I had to check it out. There seemed to be a wide array of shoes in all sorts of sizes. I decided why not give this ShoeDazzle a try. They offer free returns (but only in the united states), sales (but not really, after you order them, they discount further, two-for-one sales (but not really, they say choose a clearance item but don’t specify that it has to be from some hidden clearance page, and a customer service support (perhaps the biggest joke of all). And you know, I LOVE jokes.
I placed an order, received a tracking number and was excitedly awaiting my shoes. A box came. With one of the two pairs of shoes I ordered. I looked up the tracking number, to see if there was a second number. Nope. So I called their world class customer service, waited for 23 minutes and then was told my order was shipped. I explained I ordered three pairs of shoes and received one. She said the order was shipped. I asked if there was a separate tracking number than the one I provided. She said ‘no’. I asked her where the second and third pair of shoes were, could she locate them? She said they were shipped and received. I said that I had not received them, and she said ‘well it says they were’. Then she looked a little further and found another tracking number, and that they should ‘arrive soon’. I asked her for that number, and as soon as I got back to my computer I looked it up, they were ‘enroute’. A week and a half later, I finally received my shoes. Now, the shoes looked like the shoes I ordered, but they were definitely not made with great materials. The one set of shoes feel like you’re putting condoms on your feet. My feet sweat so bad I can’t even wear them. The second set of shoes look like they are cloth, but the entire shoe is plastic and terribly uncomfortable (think jelly shoes from the 80’s and you’ve found my misery) and the last set of shoes were okay.
I know, I know – what was I thinking- buying shoes on-line? But my friend loves them, and they look great on her so I decided to give the undazzling ShoeDazzle another try. I offered them suggestions for improving their customer service (maybe give the customer both tracking numbers, who would have thought? – maybe tell people what materials the shoes are actually made of – WHAT? Transparency? Managing customer expectations? What sacrilege!) and was rewarded with a $10 credit (that expired...what I’m learning is you need to check the small print with these people).
I didn’t order again for months and then decided to give them another try. I haven’t received the shoes. I have called twice (was hung up after waiting over 20 minutes, the second time I waited over half an hour and then gave up). I placed the order on a Friday (August 13), received a confirmation email that was incorrect, so called them Monday, emailed Monday, called again on Wednesday, sent two more emails, and this morning (Sept. 5) – well after the time when they actually could have done something about my order, I received an email:
“Hi Serena,
Thank you for your email! I'm sorry we weren't able to get back to you sooner as we've been especially busy the past couple of weeks. The discount on the Buy One Get One Free sale applied automatically at checkout. If you chose a regular price pair of boots and added a clearance item to the same order, the clearance item was discounted and you would've received it for free. I checked your order and you didn't receive a clearance item for free because there was no clearance item included in your order. Be aware that we did have a separate sale going on as well, but the free item needed to be specifically from the $15 clearance page. Your order has already shipped so at this point we are unable to make any changes. Going forward, if you have any issues with a promo please call us so we can take care of it right away. We can be reached at 1-888-508-1888 Monday through Friday, 6am - 5pm PST.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can assist you with, and be sure to check out the Daily Fix and our brand new Boutiques!
Take care and have a Dazzling Day,
Arnold Dazzle
Client Services
2501 Colorado Ave. #325, Santa Monica, CA 90404
Phone 888.508.1888 | Fax 213.973.6888
Fall-in-love with #FallFavorites and
see what's trending in your showroom!”
Isn’t that special? Thanks for nothing. This time, they didn’t even bother to offer an expiring credit. So here I am. Just advising whoever reads do not be dazzled with Shoe Dazzle. The shine is off the shoes...and just in the bull crap advertising.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Monday, August 12, 2013
Beauty in the eye of the beHOLDER
It's nice to be called beautiful. It's even nicer when it's someone other than my mother. I read a book about the 5 love languages - the premise being that everyone has a particular love language which is their 'first' tongue - a way of speaking and communicating with them that makes them feel loved and appreciated. The five love languages were: personal touch, words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, and gifts. I did the quiz a few years back - absolutely convinced in my stubborn self that it was absolute B.S. and a collosal waste of time, but I thought I would humour my boyfriend and the counsellor and take the test. My first love language is "words of affirmation". I laughed, because I was sure it would be "touch" - I mean, I love being touched, carressed, so why would I give two shakes what someone said to me or wrote me? The third was "acts of service".
I went home and was grabbing something from my night table drawer, when I had to pause. In my top drawer, I had a note from my son, a birthday card from my boyfriend, a handmade bookmark saying "you're the best mommy" and a few other notes I ran my fingers over. So here was the evidence. I am a 'words of affirmation' person. I feel loved, cherished, appreciated when someone writes the words down or utters them, these are the words that make my heart sing.
Skip forward to 'you're beautiful'. These words were uttered to me many, many moons ago. I was 18 and in a dry bar (unheard of now, but back in Saskatoon in the 90's, there was a bar you could go to that didn't serve alcohol). I had come to Saskatoon to pursue higher education, but really I had come to escape the small town life and live in the big metropolis of Saskatoon. I wanted to be a big city girl, and here I was, standing next to a 2nd year Engineer, still sweating from dancing with him to Autograph's "Turn up the radio", and almost swooning when he said "you're beautiful." I'm sure I responded with something sexy like "neato" but I honestly don't remember.
What I do remember is him offering to give me a ride home, and me, very naively, accepting. I also remember him driving me to a park and wanting to make out a little. I was a little nervous but thought I could handle a kiss or two - but was pulling the plug when it turned into a full out, knock down, mach-3 grope session - the man sprouted hands and arms like an octopus - all the while, sucking my face like a full on incubus. I managed to push him away, and tell him that I wanted to go home. He laughed and said "not until I'm done with you" and grabbed the door handle I was trying to push open.
It was at this point, I got scared and reacted in a true Serena fashion. I turned back to him, grabbed a HOLD of his crotch, and, while squeezing, I said "If you don't let go of that door handle, you will be singing soprano for the rest of your life" with a very incessant clench at the end to reiterate my point. Beauty in the eye of the beHOLDer - I checked off all three love languages: words of affirmation (I was very affirmative as to what I was about to do if he didn't let me go);personal touch - having your fingers digging into a scrotum doesn't get much more personal than that; acts of service - oh, I was servicing myself just fine. Bottom line - it was beautiful.
note: I am not advocating that people should put themselves in dangerous positions. What I do advocate is that we find the courage to look after ourselves when needed - therein lies the beauty.
I went home and was grabbing something from my night table drawer, when I had to pause. In my top drawer, I had a note from my son, a birthday card from my boyfriend, a handmade bookmark saying "you're the best mommy" and a few other notes I ran my fingers over. So here was the evidence. I am a 'words of affirmation' person. I feel loved, cherished, appreciated when someone writes the words down or utters them, these are the words that make my heart sing.
Skip forward to 'you're beautiful'. These words were uttered to me many, many moons ago. I was 18 and in a dry bar (unheard of now, but back in Saskatoon in the 90's, there was a bar you could go to that didn't serve alcohol). I had come to Saskatoon to pursue higher education, but really I had come to escape the small town life and live in the big metropolis of Saskatoon. I wanted to be a big city girl, and here I was, standing next to a 2nd year Engineer, still sweating from dancing with him to Autograph's "Turn up the radio", and almost swooning when he said "you're beautiful." I'm sure I responded with something sexy like "neato" but I honestly don't remember.
What I do remember is him offering to give me a ride home, and me, very naively, accepting. I also remember him driving me to a park and wanting to make out a little. I was a little nervous but thought I could handle a kiss or two - but was pulling the plug when it turned into a full out, knock down, mach-3 grope session - the man sprouted hands and arms like an octopus - all the while, sucking my face like a full on incubus. I managed to push him away, and tell him that I wanted to go home. He laughed and said "not until I'm done with you" and grabbed the door handle I was trying to push open.
It was at this point, I got scared and reacted in a true Serena fashion. I turned back to him, grabbed a HOLD of his crotch, and, while squeezing, I said "If you don't let go of that door handle, you will be singing soprano for the rest of your life" with a very incessant clench at the end to reiterate my point. Beauty in the eye of the beHOLDer - I checked off all three love languages: words of affirmation (I was very affirmative as to what I was about to do if he didn't let me go);personal touch - having your fingers digging into a scrotum doesn't get much more personal than that; acts of service - oh, I was servicing myself just fine. Bottom line - it was beautiful.
note: I am not advocating that people should put themselves in dangerous positions. What I do advocate is that we find the courage to look after ourselves when needed - therein lies the beauty.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Shit happens
Here we go. So I've been busy. So I've been really busy. I've been driving a lot - some of it fun, some of it not so fun, but what really matters at the end of the day - is I am mother frickin' tired. I average about four hours of sleep a night (before you go there, it's for all of the wrong reasons - well actually some of the reasons are right, just not sexual) and so I spend quite a bit of my day yawning, drinking caffeinated beverages, chewing gum, etc. for the first few hours of my day and then I get into the swing of things.
At least, I USUALLY get into the swing of things. Yesterday, not so much. Warning - what you are about to read might very well fall under the 'TMI' section of your brain, and yeah, it's embarrassing as all hell to me so why not share it with an indiscriminate world.
So again - here we go. Yesterday started off like every other day. I yawned, I yawned, I drank water, I brushed my teeth, I yawned some more and then drank my coffee. I came into work and still felt tired (my eyes were puffy and dry - sensitive to light like I'm some albino mole emerging from the cave) so I decided to drink some more coffee; but not just any old coffee - coffee from the pods that are available to me here at work. I then went into a long strategic meeting, and proceeded to drink some more coffee...and then my guts let me know that this alien coffee was not sitting well, that it was proving itself to be a very strong diarrhetic and I best change locations - and SOON!
So, listening to my body, I proceeded into the bathroom. Now, my day job has an enlightened look on bathrooms. They like the not-quite unisex but let's call it communal approach to bathrooms. You walk through a glass door and there's a "his" bathroom to your left, and a "hers" bathroom to your right - but no doors are in between, because everybody likes it when it echoes when they're doing their business on either side. I mean, how can I get an applause break if you can't hear how masterfully I tinkle, fill and flush a toilet?
Anyway, I went into the stall the farthest from the door, closed the stall door, fumbled with the buttons on my pants and proceeded to do my business - courtesy flush almost as soon as I sat down. I told you, my stomach was hurting, my guts screaming and so I wasn't exactly sure how long I would be sitting on the throne...so I gamed it. Yeah, I did. I pulled out the trusty solitaire on the phone and played while the hot flush of desire (to excrete)passed. I heard someone come in, so I held out, hoping they would do their business and leave so I could finish doing mine. I didn't bother to look up or try and watch for feet - I mean, I was struggling not to just flush and flush to hide my body's desire to cleanse its colon...I heard the splash of water which signalled they were washing their hands, the slight pause in front of the mirror (really lady, is this the time to be vain? Are you Snow's evil step mother Queen?) and then they were gone - and I was able to finish what needed finishing.
Finally my body was ready to go back to the world of the working, and I got up and proceeded out of the stall. Then stopped. dead in my tracks. In my bleary-eyed exuberance to get to the stall, I had failed to shut the stall door. I started to giggle - all I could think about was this poor woman who had come in, washed her hands, turned around and saw me, sitting on the throne, flushed from my effort, one hand on a phone - thumbing my next solitaire move, and the other hand poised to do a courtesy flush on the chance I let one go. So yeah, shit happens.
At least, I USUALLY get into the swing of things. Yesterday, not so much. Warning - what you are about to read might very well fall under the 'TMI' section of your brain, and yeah, it's embarrassing as all hell to me so why not share it with an indiscriminate world.
So again - here we go. Yesterday started off like every other day. I yawned, I yawned, I drank water, I brushed my teeth, I yawned some more and then drank my coffee. I came into work and still felt tired (my eyes were puffy and dry - sensitive to light like I'm some albino mole emerging from the cave) so I decided to drink some more coffee; but not just any old coffee - coffee from the pods that are available to me here at work. I then went into a long strategic meeting, and proceeded to drink some more coffee...and then my guts let me know that this alien coffee was not sitting well, that it was proving itself to be a very strong diarrhetic and I best change locations - and SOON!
So, listening to my body, I proceeded into the bathroom. Now, my day job has an enlightened look on bathrooms. They like the not-quite unisex but let's call it communal approach to bathrooms. You walk through a glass door and there's a "his" bathroom to your left, and a "hers" bathroom to your right - but no doors are in between, because everybody likes it when it echoes when they're doing their business on either side. I mean, how can I get an applause break if you can't hear how masterfully I tinkle, fill and flush a toilet?
Anyway, I went into the stall the farthest from the door, closed the stall door, fumbled with the buttons on my pants and proceeded to do my business - courtesy flush almost as soon as I sat down. I told you, my stomach was hurting, my guts screaming and so I wasn't exactly sure how long I would be sitting on the throne...so I gamed it. Yeah, I did. I pulled out the trusty solitaire on the phone and played while the hot flush of desire (to excrete)passed. I heard someone come in, so I held out, hoping they would do their business and leave so I could finish doing mine. I didn't bother to look up or try and watch for feet - I mean, I was struggling not to just flush and flush to hide my body's desire to cleanse its colon...I heard the splash of water which signalled they were washing their hands, the slight pause in front of the mirror (really lady, is this the time to be vain? Are you Snow's evil step mother Queen?) and then they were gone - and I was able to finish what needed finishing.
Finally my body was ready to go back to the world of the working, and I got up and proceeded out of the stall. Then stopped. dead in my tracks. In my bleary-eyed exuberance to get to the stall, I had failed to shut the stall door. I started to giggle - all I could think about was this poor woman who had come in, washed her hands, turned around and saw me, sitting on the throne, flushed from my effort, one hand on a phone - thumbing my next solitaire move, and the other hand poised to do a courtesy flush on the chance I let one go. So yeah, shit happens.
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