"Never Trust Technology"

About five years ago I took a trip to Vegas with my sisters and my mom. We had a great time together, for the most part. We stayed in a nice hotel, went swimming, shopping, out to eat, and even went to a Celine Dion concert (AMAZING!).

But, as you can imagine, five women come with five sets of... opinions.... and hormones, (not to mention any names, it was all of us, really... but one of us was pregnant, one of us did have a boyfriend fighting forest fires, two of us were teenagers, three of us were extremely hormonal at that time...) You get the picture.

Along the way, we relied upon the internet for driving directions. As we carefully followed them step by step, we felt further and further from our desired destination. As it became apparent that we were lost, Mom brought out the phrase that we have quoted ever since, as she tried to give us a serious teaching moment...

"Well girls, this is proof... YOU CAN NEVER TRUST TECHNOLOGY." She proceeded to drive directly to our destination on instinct alone.

However untrue her phrase may seem for the most part, there are times when I feel their truth.

December 9, 2009... I took a big gamble and picked out a watch for my dear husband's Christmas gift. It was only available online, but shipped within a week's time. I worried over my choice day and night, but when the package arrived on my doorstep 8 days later, I was excited. I opened the box to find a watch that looked entirely different from the one that I ordered. ENTIRELY different.

Fearful that it may be too late to receive the correct watch, frustrated and disappointed, I called Customer Service. It wasn't long until the gentleman on the other end clearly understood the depth of my distress. He promptly assured me that he would get me the correct watch before Christmas, overnight, in fact.

Well, 3 days later (not overnight) I received package #2 on my doorstep. Inside, the watch that I found looked oddly familiar. Familiar for the wrong reason. It was identical to the wrong watch they sent me the first time. Okay. Now I'm angry. Really? Again? It's December 21st.

Jab (that was her name) at Customer Service described to me, in detail, what the watch would look like that she was going to overnight to me... blue leather band... blah blah blah. Her description matched the watch I had ordered, and she understood clearly how upset that I was in receiving the wrong watch twice. She heard this was my husband's only Christmas gift from me. I THOUGHT she understood.

Watch #3 appeared on my doorstep December 23rd.

IDENTICAL to the first two. Strike three.

My mother's words, " you can NEVER TRUST TECHNOLOGY," rang in my ears loud and clear. Sometimes you can trust technology. It helps us with a lot of things. But this Christmas, I learned the hard way that indeed, you can't always trust technology.

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Note: I NEVER received the correct watch. I don't recommend using MACY'S online. To anyone. EVER.

Other than the watch mishap (which we are obviously still recovering from) we had a GREAT Christmas.. did you?