Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Back Into the Swing

I guess I don't have enough of one thing for a post so I'll just summarize a bunch of things.

Went to Church on Sunday. After the sermon, a woman from our choir stood up to talk about MLK. She had been a student in Montgomery in the 50's and worked on campus in the admissions office. A frequent visitor to another woman in that office was a dashing polite man. She inquired of her colleague who that was and was introduced to Dr. King on his next visit to the office. After that he always greeted her and asked how she was. Later, this woman needed a new job and Dr. King was looking for a secretary at his church and offered her the job. She turned it down because she didn't think she could do the job to his expectations and maintain her studies. Sometime after that, the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church was bombed during the bus boycott. She still wonders what would have happened if she had taken the job. She went on with her story about her friendship with Dr. King. While she spoke I was made painfully aware how much I didn't know about Dr. King and how much he did for the people of our country.

After the touching speech by the woman in our own congregation, I was agreeable to going the the MLK inter-faith memorial service on Monday with AM. This, unfortunately, was boring. The person introducing the keynote speaker spoke almost as long as the speaker himself. While the main address was informative, it wasn't nearly as moving as the presentation the day before. And it ran long. The cool part of the service was the opening prayers in the Jewish and Islamic traditions, not something usually heard in the Presbyterian church.



Back in December I won some prizes from my husband's sports-talk radio station. Business hours to pick up the prizes correspond with my work hours so I've been prizeless. Monday afternoon I realized they might be open on my day off, and they were. I made the hour drive up the pike and collected my loot.

While I was up in that neighborhood, I stopped at one of the fabric meccas in the area, G-Street Fabrics. I had two items I wanted to shop for: a printed sweatshirt fleece and zipper slides for the massive amount of bulk zipper tape I have. The zipper tape is pretty useless if you can't zip or unzip it. The sweatshirt fleece collection was a big disappointment, they just had pastel solids, no cool prints. Oh-for-one.

The lady in the notions department got me a slider, but the sample of tape I brought was separated at the end. The clerk kept saying the one she got out was the right size and I kept trying to try it out to make sure it worked. She kept saying it wouldn't work because the zipper was already separated, but it was the right size. She wrote the ticket for 1 and slid it across the counter to me. I told her I needed 10. She was very surprised, but counted out 10 and added a zero to the ticket. She couldn't get rid of me fast enough. I have to open up the zipper tape a little to get the slider on, I don't know what her problem was. When I got home I cut another piece of zipper tape and tried out my new sliders. Wrong size. They would open the zipper, but wouldn't close it back. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH. Oh-for-two.

I called the store and explained what happened to the person who answered.
We don't do phone refunds.
I don't want a refund, I want to exchange these for ones that fit.
Please hold.
I'm now on the line with the notions department manager. I explain again. And how I felt rushed. I don't want a refund, can I mail these to you and you send me the correct size? Yes. Yay. I put the wrong sliders and a sample of my zipper tape in the mail yesterday, hopefully I'll get order back on Friday or Saturday.

A couple years ago I bought a spool of bulk zipper tape with the idea of making bags, like clutches and small purses. I never found the sliders I needed so I never succeeded with the project. Now I'm so close. I'll start taking orders when I get the sliders that work.



Last night Dan and I went out to the Rams Head again, this time to see Lori McKenna. It was a good show, even bought her CD on the way out. We left the kids by themselves and things seemed to have gone alright. But I got to bed late and now I'm tired. I need a nap.



Maybe that wasn't much of a good summary.

8 comments:

David Edward said...

re MLK speeches:
good speaking and good writing are so rare these days.
and then having people really MEAN what is in the speech, i don't think we can ever hope for that.

just me said...

Sorry you were disappointed by the MLK service on Mon. The rabbi thought it went pretty well :)

I usually try to attend that service, but there was much homework to be supervised. (And too much football on Sunday.)

I hear next year we might be hosting it at temple.

BTW, glad you were able to leave the kids and the house was still standing when you got home.

Doc said...

That is a pretty incredible story about the woman at your church who turned down the secretary job at MLK's church...

I am glad I found your blog

John said...

Zipper tape? I would ask but I imagine the answer is more than I really need to know, so I will continue life uninformed.

John said...

I was looking at AM's blog and realized you caught me in a mix-up/lie. About the grills. See. Stories are hard to keep going.

Linda said...

The whole thing with customer service bothers me so much anymore. Why can't people just be NICE? Why do they have to make you feel like you are a burden in their life? If you can't deal with people, get out of that type of business, thank you. I'm sure you could get a job as a garbage collector, or push a mop somewhere...that way you don't have to deal with the public so much.

Michele sent me here to read about your zipperless bags (I'd like to see them when/if you ever find the zipper slides for them!) and the lack of caring employees....sigh.

Anonymous said...

Hello, Michele sent me.

Nice summary. I would have loved to hear that woman's story and can relate to speeches/presentations that don't "live up". Hope you enjoy your loot and get the right sliders.

Ed & Jeanne said...

Interesting...at my work they are having an employee that was not only there for that famous speech, but was given the speech afterwards by Dr. King! Talk about having a piece of history...