Thinker

Madelyn's new new mattress has finally arrived.  The new company, Easy Life, called yesterday morning to confirm.  Unlike Sears' robo-caller, which has continued to call every single freaking day this week, Easy Life had a live person call.  Was she a native American English speaker?  I don't think so, but there were no problems communicating with her.

The delivery guys?  Friendly and happy, like they enjoy their job.  And, even though Tom apparently didn't request that Mad's crib mattress get picked up (I have my suspicions that it was hard for him to see it go), the delivery guys willingly took it with them for the bargain price of nothing.

We ended up with a memory foam mattress.  It's processed differently (read: less chemically) than a lot of other similar products.  Tom had warned me that it would take a few hours to get to its full size because of the way it would arrive.  I was still surprised when it came in a roll.  A super tight roll.  The full size mattress was rolled up so tightly that the roll wasn't even 18 inches across.

By the time it was unwrapped and unrolled, it was already fluffing up.  By the time I came back from signing off on the delivery forms, it looked like this:

In the past few hours it has nearly doubled in size.

I washed the mattress pad and a few full-size sheet sets we happened to get last summer before our Chinese exchange students arrived.  Next up will be the continued search for bedding.  Why do they make children's bedding that needs to be dry cleaned?

Have you bought bedding lately?  Whew!  That stuff's expensive!  We'll be making it Mad's birthday present.

In less than one month, the daughter I always knew I'd have will turn four.  How that can be?  Four is so much older than three, don't you think?  At four, we really can't get away with calling her a toddler any more.  Not that she acts much like a toddler.

Her morning routine for the past several weeks has included coming into my bed in the morning and telling me, "I'm hungry.  I'm thirsty."  (If Fynn is already with us... and she usually is... the next thing I hear is, "I hunc.  Jink.")

One recent morning I responded by telling them I had to take a shower and get dressed before we would head downstairs.

Mad wasn't having it.  "I simply need a drink," she said with blessedly mild consternation.  (Yeah, she got her drink right away.)

It will be interesting to see how our mornings change with the new bed.

Aside from just making the transition to Madelyn's new bigger bed, I am... we all are... looking forward to returning to the regular nighttime routine.  Half a week of acting crazy, loud screaming fits and running from Tom before joining us in Fynn's room?  Beyond ready for it to be over.  (Aside from the major change in routine and dealing with new fears, Mad is coming down with a head cold... a sure path to trouble.)

It will be so nice to have Mad in her own room.  It will be even better to make the room into a place that Madelyn will love for (hopefully a lot of) years to come.  Since this is coming in time for her birthday, and because I've been trying to make gifts for the girls* instead of filling the house with a bunch of plastic crap, I've been working on a project for Madelyn's room.

Have I mentioned that we live on one side of a mountain range and work, Grandma and Papa's house and our friends are all on the other side?  (Okay, fine, I've mentioned it few [hundred] times.  What?)  The pass that goes down the hill has a fire road on one side.  We call it the train road because there are several tracks that carry freight from Los Angeles to points east.

Madelyn has loved taking the train road for a couple years now.  Around this time last year she learned about the sunflowers that often line the road.  I stopped and mangled picked one for her and she has never forgotten.

Sunflowers are yellow.  Yellow is Mad's favorite color.

My camera and I have made many trips on the train road lately.  I learned pretty quickly not to pull over too close to that area where men pull over to "hang out" with other men.  They're so friendly!

The pass is usually at least a little windy.  It's hard to photograph flowers in the wind, but it can be done.

These are all from the train road.  Something like this, but without the background and with frames will hopefully end up on Madelyn's wall within the next month.

*Why, yes, I did make two of the cutest stuffed dogs for the girls for Christmas.  So what if neither one has eyes, a nose, a mouth, an attached head.  It's the thought that matters, people!  And I'm a thinker!

Dear Sears, Feel Free to Suck It

Last fall I checked around to see about having our fridge and dishwasher repaired.  After the debacle of looking for a local repair guy several months earlier (as I write this it's been 10 months since parts were supposedly ordered), I decided to ask friends.  Sears came up a lot, so I looked online.  Scheduled a repair for one through their online self-service function, but I wanted one appointment for both.  I chatted online with someone, who gave me different costs than what I'd seen when doing it myself.  In some cases the prices were better, but not across the board.  The man wouldn't give me a straight answer about the differences and insisted I had to decide then and there.  Talking it over later with my husband wasn't an option.  So then neither was using their repair guys.

It was annoying, but I moved on.  Fast forward to last week, when we headed out to shop for Madelyn's new bigger bed.  As there have been seven years or so and a recession since the last time I bought something other than a crib mattress, I had no idea how much had changed.  Mostly it's pretty cool stuff, but can be difficult to make direct comparisons.

After shopping at a couple places, Tom and I were able to define our preferences for Madelyn's new bigger bed pretty succinctly:  Firm, not extra firm, no pillow top.  Reinforced sides.  Pocket coils.  It's for our almost four year old daughter; she's a stomach sleeper.

We found several awesome sales last weekend and salespeople of varying knowledge and usefulness.  I'm sorry, but "It's got the box spring, so... you know..." does not answer our question about, well, anything.


After taking time to think about our two top choices, Tom headed out Sunday afternoon to seal the deal at a local mattress store.  Would have been great if someone had actually bothered to show up for work that day.  Or return his call the next day.

Monday evening, we schlepped the girls around to a few stores near my office.  Found a really good deal combined with a very nice, reasonably knowledgeable salesperson and walked out of Sears with a receipt for Madelyn's new mattress and box spring.  We paid a little extra to have it delivered on Saturday so I wouldn't have to take time off from work.

We received Sears' robo-calls on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday that sought to confirm Saturday's delivery.

Friday morning I confirmed with the robot and a live person who works for Sears.  It required three calls to make that happen.

Friday night around 7:00 I accepted Sears' robo-scheduler's estimated time of delivery, even though it was right in the middle of Mad's (late afternoon) nap.  I figured it would be better to accept than try for a different time since it was already going to be so late in the day.

We had a busy day planned, including a play date with some of the girls' (and our!) friends here at the house.  Plus, Tom and his brother were heading down to watch a tennis tournament in Indian Wells right after lunch.  I asked him to convert Mad's toddler bed into her bigger bed first thing in the morning.  He did it.  With the girls' help, it took about an hour.

  

Late yesterday morning we received yet another robo-call from Sears.  This one was not only telling us that the delivery would have to be rescheduled for another day, but also that I would have to hang up and call another number to find out more.  

It's almost as if Sears tries harder to annoy customers than to actually serve them.  They succeeded.

I called the other number, got on the phone with someone who initially sounded annoyed because I couldn't understand his thick accent.  Dude, you may live in India, but your customers are in America.  Don't get pissy with me because I can't understand you!  I'm normally pretty good with a variety of accents, but there are limits.

The customer no-service guy said we could reschedule delivery for a week later.  

"Yeah, that's not going to happen.  Her bed has already been converted.  We can't put a mattress in there, because she gets up at night.  If she were to get up and trip over the massive bed frame that's now filling her room, I'd really be upset.  And we have company, so the spare bed isn't available.  We need the mattress when it was promised and for which we paid, but if it has to be delayed, we cannot wait a week."

After about 45 minutes on the phone, mostly on hold, we were offered a ten percent off coupon for a future purchase.  I explained very clearly that there would be no future purchase if the situation wasn't resolved.

They put me through to the store with the understanding that I would be discussing a switch to a comparable or better mattress that could be delivered sooner.

Nothing could be delivered sooner.  The (same, previously thought of as nice) salesperson, Josie, said she'd get back to me as long as it didn't require that she violate the meal code.  She said she was upset with the manufacturer.

I pointed out that the problem was on Sears' side.  They had confirmed delivery at 7:00 the night before.  If they didn't have the merchandise, they shouldn't have done that.

Josie had the nerve to say that the only way to get the mattress we paid for and that Sears had promised would be to take it from someone else.  She then blamed the automated service for confirming because "it doesn't know what the people are doing."  Clearly.

So I packed up the girls and made the almost 50 mile drive down to Rancho Cucamonga (or, according to one of their many robo-phone operators, Raunch-o Cucamonga). 

And stand around waiting for almost half an hour.  Does it help that the sales people were nice and completely professional during the wait?  Yes, but not nearly enough.  And that whole "completely professional" part deteriorated at the end as I was trying to leave.  The woman who had sold us a bill of goods the alleged mattress continued to argue Sears' side.  Among other points (which she was trying to make as my girls were beginning to meltdown) was something about how she couldn't possibly move our order up unless someone else had canceled theirs and it was exactly like ours.  I just walked away shaking my head at that point.  I never asked for someone else's order to be pulled.  I wanted our order to be fulfilled.

I then took the girls to Grandma's so I could go out and find another mattress from a company that would actually deliver on their promises.

I hit five stores last night, including a membership place before picking up the girls.  Then I brought them back home and got 'em to bed.  Mad's currently set up on the floor of Fynn's room.  Without the frame (which has three high sides as you can see here) and side rail of her toddler bed, it's nearly impossible for her to stay on the mattress.

We got home after their bedtime, thus the play clothes instead of jams.

Even better is the fact that Fynn's still not a great sleeper.  Her crying wakes up Madelyn.  And when Fynn called out for me to get her from her crib this morning, she woke her big sister again.

Best of all is that Madelyn is afraid to sleep in Fynn's room.  Bedtime and nap without her regular space have been loud quite a treat.

And a ten percent off coupon was supposed to entice me to return?  That'd be a hell no.

You'd think this would all be over, wouldn't you?  Well you'd be wrong.  This morning we received two robo-calls from Sears stating that the appliance we'd ordered would be delayed.  And, again, I had to call another number to make them stop calling.  The customer no-service person (who also seemed to be from India or that region) said they were calling about the foundation I'd ordered.

Um, no.  I have cash in hand from canceling that order yesterday, and it said an appliance was delayed.

Some day soon this is going to be functional.

Tom just walked in with a receipt for Madelyn's new new bed.  It will be here in a couple days.

UPDATE:  The Sears robo-dialer called three more times today (the day after this post was made).