A couple of weeks ago, my now six year old (then five year old) came home from school, actually she came marching down the hall at school toward me waving her brand new, indoor, back-to-school, running shoes in my face.
Except they didn’t look brand new at all.
The right shoe was missing the sole. Does it get any sadder than a shoe without a sole?
This poor, sole less shoe, waving in my face for all the world to see, wires dangling that used to light up into glorious sparkles now just dangling, defeated. I’m sure people thought these shoes were old, hand-me-downs from two daughters ago given the feet-in-zip-lock-bag fiasco we lived through last year. “When you know better, you do better.” (Dr. Phil, episode ALL)
But they weren’t hand-me-downs. These were brand new back-to-school shoes and from a reputable shoe-making company and they weren’t cheap.
I sent a note to the manufacturer explaining what had happened, focusing on things like “indoor shoes” and how sad it was to see a shoe without a sole.
The company was quick to respond—see, reputable.
They asked me to simply fill out a series of forms, retinal scans, send in a stool sample from all members of the family and then they would be happy to replace the shoes.
They neglected to take into account that as a stay-at-home Mom, I am one of the few people on the planet with time to follow up on the challenge presented. I can fill out forms and supply a DNA swab while filling thermoses with mac ‘n cheese and driving my mini-van to swim practice.
But then things got weird.
I sent in the forms, perhaps the first ever to be received by this company and they weren’t sure how to proceed.
Board room at shoe company: My God, no one has ever filled in all of these forms before, exactly as we asked. We’ve always been able to scare them away by asking “What is your first pet’s name?” and “Who is the founder of Costco?” But I had all of the information they wanted and nothing but time.
They finally agreed I had done what they asked and after a lot of brainstorming on their end, this is what they came up with. This is the last email I received.
This is real. This is a real request. “We now need a picture of the tongues cut out, we will send the replacement when we receive the picture.”
This s%$# just got real. We are now dealing with a ransom situation.
So, I cut out the tongues and sent them this note along with the gruesome pic;
And that’s what I’m doing now.
