The Magic of Macys

Dear Macy's Management,

We need to talk. Customer Service means giving service to customers. It does not mean sending them down a forest path; a path so circuitous, so frustrating, that you hope they will just give up and go home.

Here is what happens if you call Macy's Customer Service number. You make three or four layers of choices, you key in your account number (because when you choose the option to speak the number, they can't understand you), you key in a portion of your social security number, you get put on hold for a very long time, and then you get a human being... in India. Who can't hear you. You try the whole process again, thinking there must be something wrong with your phone. And they still can't hear you. Even if you yell, which, by now, you are most certainly doing.

So you decide to get in your car and go to Macy's where, it turns out, there is NO customer service department. Instead, there are two beige telephones that, when you lift the receiver, connect you to the Customer Service line where you make three or four layers of choices, you key in your account number, you key in a portion of your social security number, you get put on hold for a long time, and then you get a human being... in India. Who can't hear you. Even if you shout.

The best thing to do, at least in Vancouver, Washington, is to go directly to the Wedding Department and speak to a lovely woman named Heidi. Heidi also has a beige telephone at her large, quiet Wedding Department desk with which she can call the people in India. Oddly enough, when Heidi identifies herself as a Macy's employee, the people in India can hear her.

That must be the Magic of Macy's.

It's May, It's May, the Lusty Month of May

Until a year ago I was under the impression that the lifespan of the average household goldfish went something like this:

Day 1 - purchase 49 cent goldfish (or, alternately, lob a ping pong ball into a jar and bring one home from the fair in a cruelly small baggie)

Day 2 - admire goldfish swimming enthusiastically around the bowl

Day 3 - note that goldfish has developed a serious list

Day 4 - flush goldfish down the toilet

But that was before I had outdoor goldfish. They still started out as 49 centers. But, now, after two years and two seasons under several inches of ice they are hale and hearty and lookin' for love. According to ehow.com, it isn't easy to determine the gender of the average goldfish. However, I'm pretty sure I have 3 males and one female since Goldie was being hotly pursued by Larry, Moe, and Curly last weekend. Larry (or maybe it was Moe or Curly) sidled up to her and shimmied most alluringly. I'm counting on being a Grandma again, soon.