Black Oak's Daughter

We were very blessed at Christmas.  I got all the usual perks  from the guys that I work with, and my family seems to have caught the gift card bug.  One of the gifts that Minime bought Roomie was a gift card to Amazon.  He looked around on the site and didn’t really find anything that he wanted, so we traded. I got several gift cards to Target from co-workers and family members, so we made an even trade, his Amazon card for my Target card of the same value. I shop on Amazon all the time.

I put that one away for a few days, and went and spent other gift cards.  I got mostly practical with them, so I thought about it and I wanted something fun and totally not pratical. I’m too damn young to be this practical. I thought about it some more.  I haven’t gotten any new computer games for a while, so I looked around on amazon, and found that they have games that you can download and play for very reasonable prices.  I looked at the choices for a couple of hours over the course of a few days. Downloaded the 30 minute demos, and made my decisions.

I grabbed the card and entered the code, all set to extend the games that I wanted to play, and the code on the card didn’t work.

Well, crapola.

I entered it again.

No go.

grrrrr

I contacted Amazon customer support.  They have a link where you can send them an e-mail. They responded quickly, asking for the specifics. I sent them, and they responded quickly again, saying that since Minime bought the card at a retail outlet (Walgreens) they had no control over it, and I should take it back to Walgreens.  I wrote back knowing that Walgreens wouldn’t touch it, but they persisted. The card says on the back that a third party handles the cards sold at retail outlets, so I understood that Amazon is fairly helpless if anything about the transmission between Walgreens and that third party company, and then between that company and Amazon goes wrong.

I took the card to Walgreens, and the manager pointed to the big sign over the gift card section that said “No Returns, No Exchanges”

So much for that.

I’m not one to give up, so I read the card again. Then I got on Amazon’s site again. This time I chose the other customer service option where they call you back immediately.

I have to say, their support is excellent, except for the fact that I wasn’t getting the answer that I was looking for.  The rep on the other end of the line was a nice southern woman. I told her the whole history of this and that I really didn’t want to tell my daughter that she’d donated $25 to Amazon because I couldn’t get the card to work, or take it back, or anything.  The nice lady asked me to read the codes off of the card. There were 2 codes, the 16 digit one that is visible, and the one under the scratch off part. I gave her the first one, and then the second one, checking what I’d entered on the screen 20+ times already at the same time just to be sure.

I got two thirds through the second code and noticed something.   The “S” had a pointy corner.

No, that couldn’t be it.

Seriously???

No! I am not old enough to not be able to read what was obviously an S the first 20 times that I looked at it.

Heavy sigh.

I tried it.

The “S” was not an S.

I entered the “5″.

It worked. Dammit.

This is where I commenced feeling like the biggest dumbass on the planet.

The gentile southern woman that was on the phone laughed with me. She was understanding in a way that only someone that’s close to my age could be.  I hung up, and got my games with enough left over to get one more later, and everyone lived happily ever after.

I am a little freaked out though. My parents, at my age, both needed reading glasses. Their far vision was fine, but they were doing the “my arms aren’t long enough” thing in their early 40’s.   I’ve had glasses for far vision since my freshman year of high school. My near vision has really, noticeably  gone to hell only in the last couple of years. It’s not a magnification issue though, it’s just a little blurry. Holding it farther away like my parents, just makes it blurrier and far away.

The last time I was at the eye doctor, just a few months ago, we talked about the progressive lenses that I got from the previous place. He said that I don’t need reading glasses, my close vision is fine. I do, however, need glasses to correct the seriously screwy astigmatism that has affected my ability to distinguish details like the difference between an S and a 5.

I’m 43. I’m 2 years into surgical menopause. I’ve been fortunate in that I haven’t had a lot of the more serious issues that I could have had with that. I had minor hot flashes, a little depression, that all passed. Sleep issues are all I”m left with, so it could be a lot worse. I guess non-reading reading glasses are a small price to pay. I don’t know if he’ll give me bifoals or what, I’ll find out soon enough though.  I’m expecting an extra bit of cash in the next couple of weeks. Once I have that I’ll bite the bullet and call Dr Steve.

I feel old.

Comments Off