Monday, January 28, 2008

Who Stole The Hats?




My mother-in-law has made an art out of Christmas. Let me just tell you why; she has 5 children, 4 of which are married, plus 4 grandkids and another one on the way, her in-laws, her husband's brother, her husband and the honorary Via family (the Hambrick's), not to mention her friends and family that do not come to the Via household for Christmas. One thing she started this year that was pretty creative was to give each grandchild a different type of wrapping paper so we don't spend 30min. looking for their next gift. Back to the post at hand; at the end of Christmas she gives us all an envelope with ALL the gift receipts for each family so if something doesn't work, doesn't fit, or isn't what we particularly liked we can take it back. Well, I was organizing the office last week and I ran across our receipt envelope and I wanted to make sure that we didn't need anything out of it. I ran across one item that she had paid for that we didn't get (it's not uncommon to lose a present here and there) and I wanted to make sure that she didn't receive something she'd paid for. Last Wed. after Charlotte One, which was incredible by the way, we headed to VA to do all our taxes and end of the year paperwork for the ministry (that's a completely different post) so I brought the receipt with me and asked Janet about it. She got this look and without even a word led me into their office and pulled out what you see in the picture. She said that she had wanted to get Zeke a little construction hat to wear when he and his daddy work with their tools and this is what came in the mail. This was clearly NOT WHAT SHE HAD PAID FOR. She was supposed to get 2 matching hats for $11.99 and instead got PLASTIC PARTY HATS from the $1 store. She then drove to "Toys R Us" and asked for a refund with receipt in hand and they said with accusation "Ma'am, we don't carry those here. They aren't even our brand", to which Janet replied, "well, this is what I got in the mail after ordering YOUR construction hats on-line." Anyway, she gladly gave me the 2 packs of plastic hats from www.beistle.com for Zeke's birthday party this summer and is becoming very close to NEVER shopping on the internet again.

2 comments:

Kelly Via said...

Ummm...what in the world? Did she still have the shipping box? The shipping invoice thing that comes on the box? That is incredible!

Jennifer Hambrick said...

Yes, Janet is pretty much awesome at how she does Christmas! How weird about those hats? Hmmm? We wanna be invited to Zeke's construction party in July =)!!!

We were sorry we missed you during your visit =( How'd all the cousins do together?