LOST WEEKEND

This was a looked forward to weekend; but in some ways this weekend would be forgotten. The best part of it though was that I had my daughter and son-in-law from Roanoke Virginia and their daughter my granddaughter and husband and two children Casey and Sydney from Ohio visiting. More about that later.

The low point of this past weekend was a saga of Epson and FedEx. To start; we have to go back about three weeks when my Epson printer began to decide it had no ink. That did not matter whether there were 4 full or almost empty cartridges, it would not recognize the cartridges and would not work. Epson technical support could not correct the problem and sent me a replacement printer.

Enter FedEx; three days later I had a call from a resident several blocks away who informed me that he had a package for me which FedEx had left at his house. This gentleman very kindly brought it to my house instead of asking me to come and pick it up.

Since the old printer had to be returned by FedEx, I arranged to have it picked up the next day. Midafternoon of that day I had a telephone call; the FedEx driver wanted to know where I lived since the address he had been given did not exist.

The new printer worked fine until last weekend when I had to copy something. This was the first time I had used the copy function. Half the sheet was solid black. No matter what I tried I could not correct that problem so once again technical support failed and I was sent another printer and having to return the defective one.

I was very happy with the delivery two days later, and repacked  the old one for return. On Thursday I arranged for FedEx to pick up the return box on Friday. I checked the PRP number with the agent to be sure was correct and waited until 6 PM  for the pickup. When I called FedEx after going through the computer rigmarole I finally got a human being who informed me that they had no record of that reference number or for any pickup.

I was given a new PRP number and told I would have the pickup on Saturday. Sure enough on Saturday about 1 PM the FedEx driver rang the doorbell and when I showed him the one box to go he remarked that he was supposed to pick up two boxes.

He was a little bit surly when I insisted that there was only one box to be returned. After he left I decided everything was ok. However after I returned from our family dinner that evening, I had a call message waiting from FedEx that the driver had stopped here in 5:45 PM and nobody answered the bell so that they would try to pick up the package again on Tuesday.

Of course there is nobody in FedEx when I tried to contact the saga will continue today. As of 11 am the callback FedEx number I was left with is not a working number; of the other two I have one states that leave only voice mail, and the second goes to a computer with no workable options.

In my company consisted of three quarters of the Oh Hellers.

However, in we had a substitute fifth in Sheldon a.k.a. Casey who will be thirteen Labor Day weekend filled the fifth spot as an “intern”. With a degree of coaching from his father he won that game.

Sad to say I had never held the type cards that landed in my hands that night. Winners were losers and losers were winners. The net result that out of the 10 deals in which on  the first hand in second bidding position 

I was afraid that my bid of 3 tricks was an under bid which it turned out to be. I won my bid only twice. In each of the other 7 hands I was a victim of circumstances that I could not control.

The next game the next day I did better but nothing to be proud of. The last game I was a close first loser (2nd place) with the “always holding the trump ace” shotgun in place of the intern.

Next chance for redemption will be in December during the Christmas/New Year’s holidays.

In truth the visit was enjoyable and too short, but the Ohians have to work.