144 Pairs

 The other day I thought "It's been quiet, hmmmm"  This is always a mistake. Never, ever, never comment on the quiet of a situation.  Any Situation.

Today the delivery guy was here and I would have missed him except for Lucy running in circles to let me know.  I went outside and asked which house it was for and it was for the parents.  I told the delivery guy to just leave them with me and I will take them next door.

He unloaded one big box, returned to the van, unloaded another then another.  All the same boxes.  Then he said something to himself, got back into the van and retrieved yet another box. 

There were now four large-sized and duplicate appearing boxes in the driveway.  He left and I puzzled about the boxes.  

I am at the beginning of startup for my job and it's been rough.  Early start, more kids, new staff, new schools.  ROUGH.

I stood in the driveway and pondered the boxes.  They weren't heavy and I just couldn't fathom what they might be.  They live in a tiny house so they don't order big things.  I briefly considered leaving them there and phoning my father-in-law to let him know. Then I thought "No, I'll leave them and Kevin can deal with it."  Then I reconsidered because that's just mean. This situation is one of the reasons I'm home all day/every day.

I picked up one box and walked next door.  The siblings-in-law dumb dog was not outside on the parents deck, hooray.  I dropped the box over the gate, returned to get another box, and repeat until all four boxes are now on their deck.

Now I'm standing there, debating whether or not I want to walk in and let them know or just phone them. (they can't see me from the gate)  The boxes aren't heavy or unwieldly so my f-i-l can easily move them.  Also, it's Wednesday and I'm six days away from being in an in-person meeting and we went to an outside event on Sunday.  I'm mentioning this because: I try to avoid close contact with the parents when I've been in that situation.  So, phone them it is.

Returning to the house, I phoned my f-i-l.  He answers the phone the same way, even though he has No Idea who is calling him.  This grates on Kevin but I just find it funny.  I explained that there were four large boxes by the gate.

He sounded surprised.  This is my second clue.  We hang up and I return to work.

About thirty minutes later, my m-i-l phones.  She does this nervous laugh thing that Does grate on my nerves.  "Can you come over?  I need your help"  I answer yes, that I will be over in a few minutes.  "Don't laugh" she says.  Clue number three

I have no choice but to go into the house because they have the air conditioning running. (the lovely PNW is experiencing a heat wave that feels like it will never end)  My f-i-l is giggling.  "See those bags right there?" he points to their table.  "See these?" he says while gesturing with a bag of socks in his hand.

She had ordered...I just can't even...FOUR SETS of THREE bags of TWELVE pairs of socks.  Four big boxes, each one holding thirty six pairs of socks. 144 PAIRS OF SOCKS.

"But those are the Really Good, Best socks" she says as my f-i-l is offering to give bag(s) away to me.  They may be but we don't need dozens of socks.  

As she always does, she said "I don't know what happened. I made ONE order then I didn't think it went through so I went back and just looked."  Yes, her pants are on fire.  She doesn't 100% realize what she's done but she knows that she did Something.

I took her tablet and logged into her shmamazon account.  Sure enough, she had ordered All the Socks In All the World.

I went through the return process and explained to them that I had to take the boxes to the shipping place.  They cannot do it because it's too big of a task for them.  If it had been, say, one bag of socks I would have made them do it.  But not three boxes of socks.

"What do we do with THAT?" she gestures to the remaining box of now opened socks.  

"You keep them because I'm not going to box them all back up to try to return them.  You'll use them, they're socks.  F-I-L, you have socks for the rest of your life!  You can give them to Kevin for his inheritance!"  He laughed, she didn't really.

Now I'm taking the boxes back over to our house and loading them in the suv.  Even though I told my f-i-l that I had it, he came shuffling behind me with a box. Bless his heart.  The boxes were large enough that I had to lay them side-by-side in the cargo area.

I explained that I would return them tomorrow and sent him back to his house.

You might be quicker than me and are thinking "That had to be expensive..."

Because I didn't think about it until I sat back down to work.  I logged into her shmamazon account and OMG.

OMG.

Almost $600 worth of socks.  Then I panicked, thinking it was put on her debit card.  Somehow, MIRACULOUSLY, it was on her credit card.

I texted Kevin and said "I have to go to town again for the parents", knowing that he would call.  And he did.

"SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS WORTH OF SOCKS.  144 PAIRS OF SOCKS!!"

All he could do was kind of exhaustedly laugh.  "Let me guess, she didn't do it."  When I confirmed yes, he said something that always makes me laugh "Those bastards ordering things for her."

When I left the house, it was 85 degrees.  Kevin had just fixed the SUV's air conditioning the night before. (because 2022 is so awesome, lolsigh)  I went to a different shipping store, because it's not usually busy.  

It was busy.  And I had three large boxes.  I unloaded them outside of the door, then brought them inside one by one, setting them just inside the door.  Then I waited my turn, I was the fourth person in line...maybe fifth.  Super.

Finally it's my turn.  I took one of the boxes with me, gestured to the other two, and gave her a printout of the QR codes required to send them back.

"Do you know which boxes these go to?"

I kind of laughed, on the verge of losing it kind of laugh

"No, I thought I was being prepared printing those out..."  

She had no suggestions. I went to the internet on my phone, logged into m-i-l's shmamazon account and tried to figure it out.  Realizing it's going to take more than a minute and if I were a person standing in line behind me, I would be resenting me with the power of a thousand suns.

"This is a solvable problem" I tell her "But I will step over here and let someone else be helped. Then I'll step up when I'm ready."  The poor girl looked relieved.

I figured out how to find which box went to which QR code, except I wasn't 100% certain.  I stepped back up to the counter (sorry person who was waiting, I would hate me too) and explained that I had one but the other two were not working.  

She matter-of-factly said "I'll just print three labels and send it then they can figure it out."

WHY IN THE NAME OF DORA EXPLORER DIDN'T SHE JUST OFFER THAT AT FIRST?

She did just that, printed a receipt and off I went. With a Receipt, because I'm not feeling confident about this process.

And I just tried the tracking numbers, twenty-four hours later and THEY WOULDN'T WORK. Cue me, phoning the shipping store to find out that they are in Oregon and on their way to be returned.  I just have to do the one thing I'm not good at: have patience.   However, she said if an issue happens, she can help so that was worth the phone call.

Now we wait. We're assuming this will all work out in the end but we're also assuming that we will eventually get a panicked phone call about a $600 charge on their bill.

Never mention the quiet.