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Wednesday, April 25, 2012

joined at the feet

I will probably never meet her, but I think of her as being very similar to me. 

Somewhere out there is a woman who likes taking walks, maybe she's still stroller-pushing age.  Or she could be take-the-grandkids-to-the-park age.  Maybe she's also got a pooch.  She could be a couple of time zones away from me, or she could be right around the corner. 

Somewhere out there is a woman with whom I'm forever bonded.  We share a unique connection.  I started thinking about her yesterday.

Somewhere out there is a woman who, one day last week, placed an order online.  She anxiously anticipated its arrival.  She got the usual e-mail notices:  "it's shipped!" and then there were tracking links - how it had arrived at such and such a warehouse, how it departed such and such a warehouse.  She could watch its progress in her mind, making its way to her.

I was home when my package arrived.  I set the package down here on my giga desk, rubbed my hands together, and removed the seal.  Ah, the fun of mail order!

I opened the box and pulled out one fresh new walking shoe for my left foot, ready for action.  I reached in and pulled out the other fresh new walking shoe for my left foot....

"What the....?"

Wolfgang looked at me, seeing the perplexed look on my face as I gradually came to understand that I was holding two left shoes. 

I looked at my feet.  Yep, still one right and one left. 

Uhm.... yeah.  So amazondotcom sent me a label to return them at no charge (ya think?) and are hopefully sending an order, this time with one left shoe and one right.  As I was live chatting with customer service, I couldn't help but notice that my new left shoes had been packed and shipped on Friday.  4/20.  Hmm... perhaps there was a little celebration of the "holiday" going on in the warehouse?

Somewhere out there is a woman, who probably received her package around the same time I received mine.  She opened the box, already thinking about her next walk with the pooch/husband/baby/grandkids, only to find that she had two right shoes that were... wrong.





Somewhere out there is my sole mate.
.

14 comments:

Linda Hensley said...

I'm wondering if your 2 left shoes might somehow be connected to your hockey injury? Maybe Amazon somehow intuited that you weren't quite normal this week? :D I hope your get a left and a right soon!

Abby said...

Hmm... the "hockey" injury is on my left shin, maybe you're right! Or maybe they really were just high.

Anita said...

Oh, that's good... writing I mean. :)

I love getting stuff in the mail, too; even though it's likely not a surprise. How disappointing it is when someone zoned out and messed it up.

ShadowRun300 said...

Ugh. How disappointing. It does make you wonder what kind of people work in the amazondotcom warehouse. Perhaps they should start using the "triple checked for accuracy" stickers that McDonald's uses. It works for them. I never get two ketchups when I ask for one ketchup and one mustard. Hmmm....that's got me wondering... maybe you needed to ASK for one left and one right shoe. With some people, you need to spell it out. :)

Scott said...

That's brilliant!

You are an excellent writer, Abby!

agg79 said...

Now, that's the way to get off on the wrong foot.
Maybe they thought you had two left feet. I believe that the medical condition is classified as leftus pedimus duex. I image someone out there is sporting the two right footed shoes trying to run/walk in circles (always to the left).

Abby said...

Actually, this one was kind of a surprise :).

Abby said...

Gosh you're right. In their defense, my order does just say "one 'pair' of...". Technically, they delivered!

Abby said...

Thanks! But some of the credit does go to those silly packagers.

Abby said...

At least they didn't make me foot the bill (the only clever thing I could think to add)!

Judy said...

HA! I imagined a snare riff at the end of your post! :-)

I'll run for you tomorrow. Back is a wee bit better, and I signed up for another race. Why? Because I'm apparently addicted to back pain, lol!

Rock Chef said...

I love parcel tracking. A friend of mine (in the UK) ordered some stuff (from a UK company). At one point his stuff seemed to be at the bottom of Lake Eirie!

I don't know if it is a saying that is used in the USA, but over here if you say that someone has got 2 left feet it means that they are really clumsy.

Abby said...

My son once lost mail order stuff to a train wreck. I wonder how often that happens.

And yes, "two left feet" means clumsy here too. Let the record show, that I have two left SHOES.

Abby said...

If you run enough, the endorphins will cancel out the back pain that the running caused!