Confused

My day started at work. Yes, it was morning. It was pretty humdrum, until about 11am. Then, of course, I get this call.

I love the calls that answer "How may I direct your call?" with "uhm, I dunno." The only thing better than that is when the answer is snippy and mean, accusing me of Gawd-Alone-Knows-What.

So, of course, it was a phone call that began with "Well, I don't know."

That was the high point of the call. The woman was calling for her sister who lived in Ohio, who had been in in February to purchase a stove for their brother, who does not live in Ohio.

I take about 12 minutes to give her directions on how to find the date on the receipt. Then I take about 20 minutes to give her directions on how to find the invoice number. I explain, also, about 14 times, WHY I'm asking--I'm going to find and print a copy of this receipt so I can actually see if what she's telling me is even close to reality.

I get that done, and am looking at the receipt. It was an install. But she keeps saying, "Delivery" and that the Delivery guy pointed out the ding on the stove and said that we'd give her sister, who lives in Ohio, who bought the stove for their brother, who doesn't live in Ohio, a discount and refund some of her money.

In the meantime, every question I ask her, she tells me her brother wouldn't know, (and of course, she's calling for her sister who lives in Ohio) and then asks him anyway. There's now a card he's looking for. Somewhere in here, she begins asking me if the money back offer has expired yet, because they wanted to call and find out early enough so that it was timely. (The receipt is dates 2/12, and the stove arrived at the brother's house within 2 days.)

Finally, I get an answer to, "Was the guy who brought the stove wearing a red vest, driving a big box truck with our logo on the side?" The short answer was "no." I bet you can already guess that the long answer involved a side trip into Ohio, with her sister. Oh, and we had to discuss how she was calling now so she didn't wait too long.

The brother finds the card. And, miracles or miracles, it's actually pertinent to the issue at hand. She explains again about how her sister, who lives in Ohio, took their brother, who doesn't live in Ohio, to our store to purchase this stove. Our store, for the record, if I haven't told you before, is not in Ohio. And again, she starts about calling quickly so the "offer" will still be good.

I explain to her that I will have to do some research and call her back. She asks that I call her, not her sister in Ohio. I ask her to write down my name, today's date, and the time she called. I had to tell her, 58 times, what that date was. She asks again if it's "too late" to have "that offer."

Out of frustration, I finally cave: I tell her, "Well, ma'am, it was over a month ago. If there was an expiration on it, it's long gone. BUT I can tell you that we're going to do the right thing, regardless of how long ago it was." I did not add, but desperately wanted to, "Even if MY sister is in Ohio."

So I can call her back, I need her name. She instead requests that she give me her name, because her sister lives in Ohio, and her brother, who doesn't live in Ohio, gets confused. Honest To God, I almost died right there. I think I actually made a choking noise. Her sister might've heard it in Ohio.

She give me her name and phone number, explains again that her sister lives in Ohio, and apologizes and says that "sometimes I get confused, too."

What frightens me the most about this is not that her brother is actually the more confused of the two of them, it's that it was a natural gas stove--they have access to an open flame, with a never ending fuel supply.

And then, after I got home, I got to listen to my mother tell me the story of taking my aunt somewhere. Which is, after all, another post.