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So, my dog starts going nuts. He never barks, but he was running from door to door and trying to look out the windows and he actually barked. I thought it odd, but decided to take him out to see if he had to. . . you know. There have been road guys out all day, driving me nuts, tearing up the street to put in a sewer pipe (this has been going on since the middle of November) and I thought it was odd that he'd get upset about them now.
We have a screened patio out back. It was nicely screened till J. D. decided he really didn't want to be on the porch one day and jumped through one of the doors. He only broke the screen, so when we go out with him and sit on the porch, we sit a folding chair up against the door so he can't get out. The other door, which opens out, we have a latch on. (This seems to be an important point for the story.)
Anyway, I don't always remember to take the chair away from the door. However, remember, this is the back door. Last week, my husband ordered something online and when the mailman tried to deliver it, he found a folding chair blocking the door. So, he went around the porch (which involved a 20 foot walk through the mud, because under the hundred-year old pin oak tree, there is no grass) only to find the other porch door latched. So, he left the package on the brick flower bed that lines the porch. We thought it was mildly amusing, but thought nothing of it. (You'd think they'd use the front door and maybe knock, but no.)
Anyway, today when I took J. D. out to go, I immediately knew what he had been so worked up over. A UPS truck must have come because there, in the same place as the package from the mailman, were three boxes. I didn't know my husband ordered anything else, so it was a surprise. Two 20 pound boxes and a 22 pound box. From something called Skipper Knox. And maybe from Greenline Distributors. There was a GA address on it.
I looked up Skipper Knox and found 15 sites, but none of them looked remotely promising. I looked up Greenline Distributors and, without actually reading it, saw something about respirators. My husband has a CPAP breathing machine and he mentioned he needed a new mask this weekend and I wondered if was that. But 62 pounds and 3 boxes for a mask? I called him and he said he didn't order anything. Hmm.
I go back and look at the search results for Greenline and, upon a more careful reading, realize it's not what I thought it was. This is the website for the address on the box. Lawn equipment. Weird.
I look up the tracking numbers at UPS. The only thing they can tell me is that the packages were delivered.
Finally, I call Greenline. I get this real southern girl with the accent and all. I give her my zip code only and she knows my exact address. I tell that it is my address, but that's not my name, I didn't order anything, and it looks like whoever did order it, paid extra to have it sent next day air, to which she says, "Yes ma'am, 645 dollars worth of chocolate covered pecans."
Damn. I love pecans and I love chocolate. I should have kept my mouth shut. Apparently, someone order it to be shipped to this guy. (Who in the world would send someone 62 pound of chocolate covered pecans?)
She takes my number and calls me back about 15 minutes later and says the customer doesn't have an updated address, so they will send out another UPS guy to pick it up.
That kind of bugs me. I hate unfinished things. So, I put the guy's name and the town we live in into google. I find his brother's obituary. He's listed as living in this town, and he has five other brothers, two sisters and passel of other related people. So, I start calling the local ones. Three aren't home, one is the right name, but wrong family, and I finally reach the one brother I had tried and gotten "wrong family" twice before. This was actually a Junior and I dialed the Senior, but I asked if it was Junior's house and the lady said yes. (It was, in fact, Senior's house. Yes, the dead guy's house!) Well, she's real nice and all and tells me that the guy I'm looking for actually lived in this house a few years ago. Gives me his number, work number, wife's cell phone number, and address. I call him at work (long distance) and get put on hold. . . . . . . . . come on. . . . . . and finally get the guy on the phone.
"Um, hi. You don't know me, but I live in your old house?"
I tell him about the package and he says it's from a "real nice customer" who he has told his new address to, but they haven't updated it. They always send him something at Christmas, but last year, it seems that the people who lived here just kept what was sent for themselves. (How rude!) He's real nice and thanks me and tells me he'll stop by and pick it up after work and I ask him to call the company to cancel the UPS guy. (I think if I call them back and suddenly "found" the guy, they'd wonder if the $600 worth of chocolate covered pecans were really going to make it where it is supposed to go.)
So, now I'm just waiting to see if UPS guy shows up or not. I don't know what I'd do if he did. Probably not answer the door, but my son will be home soon and . . . man, I hate uncertainty.
Can you imagine sending someone 62 pounds of pecans for Christmas? Can you imagine intentionally giving them back to their rightful owner? Man, if I'd known it was chocolate, I wonder if I would have called. (Of course I would, but now I want chocolate!)
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I find it amazing that you called two places and visited a number of websites before you opened the box.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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My Mom sent me chocolate for some reason back when I was in college. No one was home, so they left it on the doorstep. That's not a good place to leave chocolate in Florida during any month other than Jan. or Feb. You probably shouldn't do it then, either.
Posts: 221 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Oh, I know. But that's what I find so amazing. At some point, while I was waiting on hold to ask someone might be in the box, I would almost certainly have opened the box. I am deeply impressed by the mental discipline someone must possess in order to not do this.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Tom, it's not really mental discipline so much as just the way my twisted mind works. It would be like punching a stranger in the face to me. You wouldn't want to live in my head, as my husband often says.
Zan, you also shouldn't give someone (or mail it to them) a present wrapped up in paper that is composed of chocolate, so they don't know what it is and put it under the tree with all the other presents only to find, the next morning, little bits of wrapping paper chewed up on the carpet, some stray papers that look disturbingly like those things that Valentine's Day candy sits in, and a dog cowering in the kitchen, the floor of which is coated with diarrhea.
Yes, my Aunt once sent my mom a box of chocolate without mentioning it and it was put under the tree and the dog ate it. That's the only package he touched from under the tree. And he got so sick.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Yeah I would have opened the box to get at the packing list if nothing else. Though sometimes they are on the outside in those little plastic things.
Do you have any idea how many different phobias/disorders were competing with one another for all this to happen? First, I don't do phone calls. I can't even order a pizza. But, I couldn't let something that someone paid extra for a quick delivery be sent back. And then to know that it was a $600 present. Well, that just pushed me over the edge. But the thought of a UPS guy showing back up and having to answer the door, that's a bit iffy, but the thought of this guy coming to pick it up, and it being his old house, and he asked questions about it in a way that let me know he'd really like to take a look around the place and oh my god there is going to be someone in my house.
You know, Thursday, I went Christmas shopping (me, out in public for 7 hours!) Friday, I raked leaves for 10 hours (outside, where there are any number of people who feel the need to slow down and stare, or worse, stop and say something stupid.) Saturday, I spent the entire day trimming a hedge and digging out roots from a hedge the previous owner chopped down but left enough of to damage a lawn mower. And by all day, I mean from sun up till sun down. Then yesterday, I had my husband take me to Kansas City to try and find a present for my nephew and to try and track down what he wants for Christmas, which is impossible. I finally just wanted to go home and he stopped at a grocery store to buy some wings from the deli and I almost cried in the store. I never cry. (He's seen me cry twice during our 15 year marriage.) I wanted to just die and be anywhere but where I was. I almost cried in the car on the way home. And he says but we're in the car, we're almost home!. Like that helps.
Like I said, you wouldn't want to live in my head.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Well, the UPS guy never came (or couldn't figure out how to get to a door.) The guy came and got his nuts. He opened the biggest of the boxes and wouldn't you know that was the one box with plain pecans? He gave us a big old bag of them. I wasn't real keen on the idea, but my husband seemed to think if he took the pecans, I'd make him a pie.
While they were taking the boxes out to the car, the guy says that before buying this house over a decade ago, he "started out renting renting it from a lawyer from Wichita and his partner, if you know what I mean."
He lived here for years and didn't know there was a hidden hole in the carriage house, that there was a cistern that you could break a leg in in the backyard or that there was a capped well on the outdoor patio. How can some people be so blind? Maybe he was too busy worrying about the former owners sex life.
Anyway, the husband was home to deal with him, so everything worked out. And he called the company that sends him this stuff every year and made sure they changed his address on their computer so it won't happen next year.
Does anyone in the KC area know of a store that carries a boxwood stove? Or know someone that has one they want to get rid of?
If I could find one of those and set of the Incredibles action figures where the family is the action figure and not the regular person, I'd be much happier.
Oh, and does anyone have a decent recipe (and/or tricks) for a pecan pie? I've tried a couple of times, and while it tastes really good, it is really something you'd drizzle over ice cream more than a pie. And I'm a pretty good cook, but this is the one thing I've never been able to make. Probably because I love it so much.
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Kayla, that is impressive how you found that guy with google. Someone should put you in comic books as a googling super hero!
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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The pecans are in shells? What do you do, lick off the chocolate and then get out the nutcracker? Posts: 1379 | Registered: Feb 2002
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And I always have a nutcracker within reach. They are very handy to have around. Just in case some nuts need cracking. (And with all the nuts at my house, that happens often.) (So many entendres there I can't even count them.)
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Guess what showed up this evening on my porch? Yup. This year, it's one 59 pound box. He swore to me that he had this address thing taken care of last year. Now I have to figure out how I found him last year! I think I'll did out my phone bill. Unfortunately, I think I used a calling card. Maybe I should just do what the last owners of the house did and keep them. Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I do vaguely remember thinking I was calling the son of the guy in the obituary, who had the same number, only to find out that it was the dead guy's wife. This year, I'm going to try to avoid that.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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By the way, what exactly does mean? I can't figure it out. All red in the face with the "o" mouth and the eyes closed. Can someone 'splain that to me?
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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If you put your cursor over the Graemlins (if you aren't using the easy post thing) it will tell you what the Graemlin is.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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This is going to be a classic Christmas thread on Hatrack, resurrected every year on the day.
By the way, I'm going to have extra cookies again this year, mind sharing some chocolate pecans with me?
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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That Graemlin says blushing, while the red one says embarrassed. I have no idea. I think the blushing one is less embarrassed than the embarrassed one.
For me anyway, calling a person who you think is the son of the man you read about in an obituary, getting his wife instead (whom you assume is the daughter-in-law) and telling her that you found her through her father-in-laws obituary, only to have her tell you that it was actually her husband's obituary was really more of a than a . For me anyway.
To sum up, little oops =
Huge freaking oh my gosh, I can't believe I just did that = Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Wow, you investigate what the dog is hyper about and you get over $600 worth of chocolate-covered pecans. I investigated what the cat was so hyper about last night and I got a big ole possum strolling around on the deck. (actually, the weird thing is the cats went absolutely ballistic when we had a racoon on our deck. With a possum, it was just intense alertness on the part of one cat and the other didn't even come to check it out. Wonder why a racoon is so much more disturbing than a possum?)
After going through all that, I think I would have been just sassy enough to tell the guy, "well, thanks for the pecans but if you really want to make me happy can I have a box of chocolate covered ones?"
Good luck with the pie! And thanks for a great story.
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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The pie was last year, Uprooted. Sorry. This is a really old thread from last year that I resurrected because it happened again this year.
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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So, how did the pie turn out? I've got a recipe that's always worked for me, but I love pecan pie and wouldn't mind trying another.
Hmm, has anyone ever made walnut pie? I've got a big bag of walnuts that my mother gave me, and I need to use them up before they go rancid. Off to google...
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The pie was fabulous. All of them. And there were quite a few. I did find that I needed to bake it much longer than directed, though. (Like, and hour to an hour and twenty minutes.)
It reminded my of My Cousin Vinny. Apparently, in my kitchen, the laws of physics actually do cease to exist. I've never had a pecan pie recipe that turned out if I followed the baking time. But, the upside is that I now know that if you dramatically under cook pecan pie, it is fantastic drizzled over ice cream, so that's a bonus. Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Kayla, if you haven't handled the bag yet, I recommend returning it via UPS this year. That way the senders will get a noticeable indication that the address is wrong.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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But that will mean that she won't have the opportunity to score more chocolate coated pecans next year.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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No kidding. Major inconvenience to you to have all those chocolate pecans delivered and you still manage to not open the box.
Or do you?
Any cats or dogs you can let loose and let tear into the box? Then you'll just have to, oh, you know, save the damaged bits. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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This is a much more uplifting and amusing story than the other thread announcing that UPS should die.
I wish my dog would get excited over something as exciting as mass quantities of pecans. Mine just has fits over a neighbor who jogs.
Incidently, I didn't look at the dates at first either. I thought you just got a second delivery of pecans this year. And while I read the first thread, I so thought that you were going to find that your hubby had bought you some really expensive farm equipment and didn't want to ruin the surprise when he told you that he didn't order anything.
I am with you on the phone call phobia. I am utterly impressed that you took so much time effort to find the guy.
Posts: 1319 | Registered: Jul 2005
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(Of course I would, but now I want chocolate!)
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And I'm a pretty good cook, but this is the one thing I've never been able to make. Probably because I love it so much.![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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I think I'll did out my phone bill. Unfortunately, I think I used a calling card. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Maybe I should just do what the last owners of the house did and keep them. ![[Blushing]](graemlins/blushing.gif)
is embarrassed. Is ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
