Oh how I hate surprises
So it was the Disreputable One’s birthday on Sunday. And seeing as his other half is in the process of dragging him kicking and screaming into the 21st century, she suggested that he might like a digital camera. So I set about contacting my siblings.
Me (via text): Alright siblings! Any chance of us clubbing together and buying Dad a digital cam 4 his birthday THIS SUNDAY?
Mad Uncle A (via text): Alright saves me a job. U get it send it & I’ll send u the cash. Don’t spend too much I’m not f*ckin Bill Gates.
Sensible Uncle I (via text): Fine.
Well, he’s a man of few words. So, great, I thought, might have known as the token female I’d get lumbered with the shopping, so off I go, spending a happy afternoon researching cameras on the internerd… and finally I come up with an absolute corker. Hubby is a Fuji man (he’s got one of those great big black yokes like the paparazzi are always sticking up Britney’s skirt), and my little red Fuji Q1 is fantastic, so I settled on a really flash new black Fuji Finepix one at 7dayshop.com – less than 2cm thick (ooer!), equipped with a 2.5″ LCD screen, 7 million pixel CCD sensor (no, I don’t know what that is either), a 3x optical zoom, image stabilising system, face detection and an infrared transmission system (not that I expect he’ll be transferring his photos wirelessly but hey, it’s there if he needs it) and an extremely fast shutter speed to ensure his photos come out clear and bright even with a little alzheimers-induced hand wobble (just joking Dad). Anyhoo, I couldn’t get my order to work on 7dayshop, it kept asking me to login again, but Pixmania.co.uk had it too so I sent off my order and sat back all smug. How easy was that?
So you know this is going to go all pear-shaped, don’t you. Two days later, I got an email saying it was out of stock and would be delivered as soon as possible. Poo! I fired off a quick email: ‘No! It has to be delivered by Sunday. It’s my Dad’s birthday! Can’t you find something similar that you DO have in stock?’. Another day goes past and, finally, I get an email back: ‘the black’s out of stock, but we do have Wasabi Green (oh dear), Sunburst Orange (oh dear again) and Cherry Red in stock. Quick text to Dad’s other half and we settle on the red, which I order with another ‘please, please hurry up and deliver by Saturday’ message.
Long story short – Dad’s birthday came and went with no camera in sight – in either black or cherry red. Sensible Uncle I sent him a card saying ‘hope you enjoy the camera’ (oops, that buggered that surprise then), but still nothing. Then this morning, I check my email to find, completely out of nowhere – a completely new ’thank you for your order’ email from Pixmania, saying that my black camera will be delivered in 3 to 5 working days. Give me strength. Next time he can have his usual port and stilton and bloody lump it.
23 Responses to “Oh how I hate surprises”
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ha
x
Alg: Is it not? Bloody hell, I’ll send another strongly worded email. Yep, definitely Maltesers next year x
Thrifty: Er, not really thanks. And bucket brigades? Did you make that up?
Not sure I can see your Dad using all the right settings etc, I feel he need a PHD camera…
Push Here Dummy…. like mine is !
We have two camera, one that does it all for you… (mine), and the technical one, Mrs M’s !
Still laughing at your Mum’s comment about head cutting.
x
Tara
And now watch while they send you one in each colour and charge you for both.
Ma: Ha! He will, won’t he – or there’ll be unlimited ‘finger over the lens’ shots x
QR: That’s exactly what they did! 3 to 5 days my arse!!!!
Tara: Me too – it is true though – he sent me a lovely picture of me as a toddler recently, lovely except I had my eyes shut!!
Jay: Oh lord. Ah well, I used Hubby’s credit card
June: Oh blimey, never thought of that x