A to Z sign-up

For March, I want to write and schedule all of my April A to Z Blogging challenge posts.  I'm proud that February went better than January for me. 😊 I'm hoping for another bump up in those numbers.

I signed up for the A to Z blogging challenge today. Hopefully, that will boost my numbers. Now, if I could just get over this cold... 🤧

Writing and gaming prompts and ideas

Current State of Things

Furniture and Moving:

At long last, the couch came. Beyond all the previous drama listed on this blog, there was also a time period where they brought the wrong item, TWICE, and I had to wait additional weeks before they made it right. This included a day where I absolutely freaking lost it and, while shaking with rage, I screamed at the customer service guy who promised me the right items would come before Christmas. I honestly didn't think I even could yell like that anymore. I didn't think I had the lung capacity. My body paid for that little outburst later. But my neck felt so good! Like letting the tension out for the first time in years.

The bedroom still isn't fully decorated or unpacked. My husband has stuff stacked in such a way that I can't address the issue without him here. But he has been exhausted on the weekends.

Actually, we've both been sick a few times this month, so I don't have the energy to care.

Budget:

I'm trying really hard to stick to a budget this year. I thought I was doing really well! But as I sat here tonight trying to figure out how I was missing $300, I realized it's because last year still hadn't gone away. I had "borrowed" some money from this month's budget to cover part of the rent. Also, the next check comes on the seventh instead of the fifth-or-sooner, so I had to pay one of the February bills with January money. So, for a brief moment I thought I was ahead, but because of a fail last month and an early payment this month... whoops, behind instead. Also, my husband works 10 hour days, but only gets paid 8 hours on a holiday day off. So there was a shortage thanks to New Years'.

When I did this in May of last year, I was spending 116.02% (meaning more went out than came in, so I had to use my savings to cover the rest).
January 2020 was 102.79%.
(Considering the savings account has been severely depleted, it'd be great if I could get that number back down to under 100%.)

The big issue I see with February is that John and I both have doctor appointments this month. Sadly, unless I find a cut to make, it looks like February will be 103.5% spending. We'll see how it goes.


Writing:

Oh F^(!<

154 words written
9 hours of editing

I know I was sick, so I didn't do things. But that's just... that's just horrible. That's slam-my-head-on-table horrible. I have to do better. I must be capable of more.

Another Mealey's Furniture Post - Still No Change

I've been trying to get the couch out of them. In addition to contacting them by phone, email, website form, website “live” chat (no one is there, it says they'll get back to you, that's not live), Facebook, and Twitter, I've also started a letter writing campaign. At least a dozen friends and family members have written, by postal mail, on my behalf asking them to give me the couch I paid for already.
I contacted the Better Business Bureau. Through them, the store tried to give me a store credit. To a store that's closing and that has exactly one thing that I want.
Except they don't have it? They sell items they don't have. They tell customers it's in stock and will be there in 16 days “probably sooner since you paid cash!” Then change it to 36 days. Now they're saying 8 weeks.
I'm trying to get the couch before Thanksgiving. I orginally tried to get it before I had people coming over for other gatherings. I'm now the person who can't even buy a couch. I've got ridicule and pity from people over this. And I can't even get comfortable in my own home because that's MY spot to calm down. Beds are for sleeping. The office chair is for working. I can't calm down. I CAN'T relax. I'm in mental anguish. As if my blood pressure wasn't through the roof already! (Seriously. Last hospital visit, they weren't sure how I was alive.)
As if that's not bad enough, Mealey's is acting like I KNEW about this! As if I was informed and consented to this pain. I went to their store because another one said it'd take 3 weeks if I ordered, and I wasn't willing to wait that long. Does that sound like someone who was told it'd take 8 weeks before she paid? No! Because I wasn't! I was told 16 days (Oct 11), probably less than 5 (in Sept). LESS THAN 5.

https://www.quora.com/What-should-I-do-I-bought-a-couch-on-9-26-at-Mealeys-furniture-paid-in-cash-It-has-been-3-weeks-I-still-dont-have-an-estimated-delivery-date-Ive-emailed-called-used-the-website-form-and-tried-social-media-but-heard

More Mealey's - My Battle for the Furniture I Purchased

On Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 1:52 PM Karen Moser <karen.moser@mealeysfurniture.com> wrote:

Jamie,

     Your order was placed on 9/26/2019.  At the time your order was placed it was not in stock at our warehouse, in which case you were told by the person entering your order at the help desk it would be 3-8 weeks for delivery.   The 8 weeks would be by November 23.  I do not know who gave you the
date of October 11th, but that date was nit available.

Karen Moser
Office Manager
Mealey's Furniture
2180 MacArthur Road #15A
Whitehall, PA  18052
610-973-2910


_____________________________________________________

I was told it WAS in the warehouse. Both by Nancy, my sales person, and then by the cashier woman (I'm sorry, but I didn't get her name). They both said Oct 11 at the latest. 

Had someone said November, there is absolutely NO way possible that I would have bought this. There was another couch in your store I also liked. And there are other stores in the area. I didn't even want to wait until Columbus Day, when there are sales, because I needed a couch before then. Something you're perhaps aware of, as your store has been widely discussed among my peers. "Yes, this is the spot where there isn't a couch to sit on. Please enjoy our lovely floor because Mealey's lied to me about the delivery date!" 

Maybe your computer system is out of date? Maybe your employees conspire to sell things you don't have? I don't know. It's funny that you're going out of business but wouldn't sell the floor model. Granted, the day I was at the Whitehall store, only your New Jersey location was actually going out of business, but all locations were having the sale. Seems your website has since changed that stance. 

I called, emailed, used the website contact form, tired the "live" chat (which isn't live), and reached out on Twitter and Facebook. All to no avail. No one would respond.

This is why you're getting letters by mail. And being contacted by the Better Business Bureau. 

I've reached out to both the main store and the Whitehall one to try to track down furniture that was, no matter what you believe, GUARANTEED to be here earlier this month. (Which, again, I would NOT have bought it if even the possibility of November were mentioned.) 

I was going to drive to the warehouse to pick it up, but was told that would take longer than having it delivered. I offered to pick it up from the store, but was told that would take longer still. Only paying for delivery got me the Oct 11, at the latest, date. "But since you're paying in cash, it'll probably come SOONER than that." (The cashier.) 

And if you look at the invoice, it says that the items are in the warehouse. Not "being ordered". Not something "out of stock". WAREHOUSE. I can send yet another copy of that, if you like. 

I have been extremely mistreated by your store. I don't know how high up the lies to customers go. The manager signed off on the purchase. There are initials. We didn't speak, but I assume Nancy didn't vanish into some office for twenty minutes for nothing. 

How high up on the chain are you? Can you do an investigation to figure out where the policy of lying about delivery dates comes from? At least two people at the store looked at computer screens when determining a date. I was there with my husband and father, that's three people who witnessed this, who heard the date. Who saw them look at screens when they said the number. At different points in the interaction, mind you. Two different computer screens. (One near the couch in the store, to the right side as you're coming in the door. The other computer is at the cashier station in the middle of the store.) 

If you aren't high enough on the chain, may I please be put in contact with someone who is? There's obviously something going on here. Finding out what isn't MY job.

I just want my furniture. I want what I paid for, and I want it this month as I went to a bit of trouble to get that date. I had to drive across town to my credit union to get cash, and then get that money back to the store. "The delivery team will contact you soon! Expect your items before the eleventh." 

-Jamie

_____________________________________________________

The company responded to your submission and we are passing it along to you.  The contents of this message are below or attached.  Please respond to this message in written form within 10 days.

The text of your complaint may be publicly posted on BBBs Web site

"MESSAGE FROM BUSINESS:

The furniture was a special order item which is not scheduled to arrive until November. 

To clarify, though the store is closing, the management and operations staff will remain indefinitely to insure that orders are fulfilled."

I am rejecting this response because:

There was NO MENTION of it being a "special item" requiring additional time. There was another couch we were considering. Had anyone said, "this one will take over 6 weeks to come" we would have gone with the other. No, actually, on the sales slip, it says the item is at the warehouse. No mention of a special order from elsewhere. We would have gladly taken the one on the showroom floor, but that wasn't an option either. "October 11 at the latest," that's what was said, with a strong implication that paying cash meant it would come even sooner than that. 

_________________________

http://levittownnow.com/2019/09/26/mealeys-furniture-to-close/

#WEP #WEPFF Horrible Harvest Flash Fiction

https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2019/10/october-1st-get-thinking-get-horrible.html

My offering for this prompt comes in the form of a correspondence written in a (possible) future. 500 words. Full critique acceptable. The first two paragraphs are based on a true event (except it wasn't oranges, her real name isn't Maria, and I don't know if she has a cousin named Angel in Ecuador). 

{Content Warning - Immigration in America, dystopian realism, environmental concerns}



Dear Angel,

I was born to nothing, as you know. An immigrant daughter of migrant workers in an orange grove in 2018 was as nothing as one could be. Perhaps harvesting fruit wasn't so horrible, once upon a time. But the grove gave no place to hide. Both my parents and three eldest siblings were deported when I was eleven. My younger sister and I landed in a border detention center not long after. Not sure if you knew that. She died in my arms.

I didn't know it then, but it was from infection. The sores on her body weren't treated. Sitting in her own filth for days made it worse. I remember telling the guards she was hot. They told me it was because I kept holding her, that my body heat was making her that way. They didn't care.

They do now. As you said in your correspondence, you know I'm a lawyer. Actually, I'm a senior partner at the most renowned law firm in the country when it comes to prosecuting those who ran those centers. We've won against every level in the chain of command, from the janitors who didn't meet required standards to the monster at the top who allowed the centers to exist. I had orange stripes painted on our third branch office, to represent the grove where my parents once worked.

No amount of money can replace my sister. Or the years lost with my family. I still wake up screaming in the night, fighting off the rapist guards who took me against my will. I'll never marry. Sleeping beside someone, much less marital intimacy, isn't something I can bear.

Instead, I've adopted wildlife. The lands and animals are my children, my legacy. I bought an area that was once a national park, back when such things existed. It would have been mined, drilled, or fracked by those who refuse to let go of the ways of the Industrial revolution. It's protected now, for the next five hundred years at least. I even have a provision to make it a country on to itself, should the States, Union, and New Confederacy break apart even further.

I invite you to visit, dear cousin. I realize you're busy running Ecuador and preparing for your journey, but I do hope you'll be able to make the trip here first. Neither of us has much family left. No one does these days with the shrinking population. But I wish for you to understand why I won't be among the ones on the last space ship to depart. I know all the reasons to leave, and that those who can afford it go. And I know how many have sold themselves into slavery to get onto the ships. I thank you for offering to spare me from such a fate.

But I will stay here. There are still people to help. And if the heat, droughts, storms, or radiation gets me, so be it.

All my love-

Maria




*************************************

Thanks for reading!

Update from previous post:
Still no word on when I'll get the furniture I paid for in September.
https://uniquelymaladjustedbutfun.blogspot.com/2019/10/mealeys-furniture-delivery-scam.html
I have started a letter-writing campaign. Much harder to ignore actual mail, I hope!
If you're willing and able to help, please print and mail this letter: https://docs.google.com/document/
If you'd like to edit it:

MEALEY'S FURNITURE DELIVERY SCAM

ATTENTION:
I bought a sofa at Mealey's Furniture. I've been trying to find out when it will be delivered. I was told paying in cash would get me the fastest delivery. I was promised it would come this month.
They're now saying my September purchase won't come until NOVEMBER.
DO NOT SHOP THERE FOR ANYTHING YOU CAN'T CARRY OUT OF THE STORE. I'd have taken the floor model if they let me. I was even told it would take longer if I drove to Philly to get it myself. LONGER THAN NOVEMBER?
This is your Public Service Announcement. The delivery is a scam. No wonder they're going out of business with a practice like this!

Bought on SEPTEMBER 26.

Do NOT buy anything you can't carry out of the store that day from @FollowMealeys Mealey's Furniture! Here has been my experience so far:
(6 pics so far) pic.twitter.com/y1Ax2bmyDL

— JamieWriter (@PenMinion) October 13, 2019

Credit Bureaus are a Cruel Joke

Equifax (the latest data breach one), Experian, and TransUnion Credit Bureaus. They rule adult American lives. They decide what a person is worth.

A good job? That doesn't matter.
Paid rent on time for over a decade? Nope, don't care.
Pay ISP and phone on time? Irrelevant.
Volunteer in the community? So what.
Actually paid off student loans at some point? Vanished from report.
Help little old ladies carry things? Nice to children and pets? Decent human? Not a factor.

You have to have two of the right kind of credit lines open, and owe exactly the right percent of money for a certain time period. But no one agrees what that is! And maybe it isn't two. Sometimes it is three. But it has to be just the right amount! And that's how they give a score.

What is that score? Some pretend number that has AT LEAST 4 different ways of being calculated. A number that varies wildly depending on who checks it. And how often they check it and why.

There needs to be another credit bureau. One that the consumer has input. One where the consumer reports payments, along with proof, every month. "Here is a copy of the check or the confirmation number for my payment." Volunteer hours should COUNT for something.

And there needs to be a law stating that the consumer has the right to request THAT REPORT be used to determine creditworthiness. Either instead of or in conjunction with the others, CONSUMER'S CHOICE. And the consumer should get to decide when good reporting things vanish, not everything automatically vanishes after seven years. (You shouldn't be punished with a lower score because you paid a loan off two years ahead of schedule! If anything, that should be a massive boost!!!)

We should take back control. This current system is garbage. Three companies with virtually no oversight have made up numbers that determine human worth. That should not be allowed to continue.

"Vive la révolution!"

Who is with me?