As most everyone probably knows, I live in the USA, and here we have two holidays in celebration of our parents: Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
Last month was Mother’s Day and today is Father’s Day, and needless to say, regarding both of my parents, I totally struck out.
For Mother’s Day, I used an online floral company (whose name I’ll begrudgingly withhold) and ordered my mom some flowers and chocolate.
The flowers arrived half dead and flat (and NOTHING like the picture), the chocolate…it wasn’t even there.
Irritated that what I’d paid for didn’t arrive, I contacted the floral company. It was NOT a good conversation. It started with them saying they were sorry I felt this minor inconvenience was something I needed to complain about and only got worse from there. It ended when I told them I wanted a full refund of my money and I wouldn’t use them again. They said I could have a full refund…but they’d have to go back by my mom’s work and pick up the flowers. There is a reason most of my heroines and strong and feisty. They get it from me! Without hesitation, I told the lady that’s perfectly fine. Go pick them up. They never did, nor did I get a single cent refunded. Lesson learned: don’t use [BEEEEEP BEEP] to do business with.
Unfortunately, I still needed to do something for my mom and only had that afternoon to make arrangements as it was the Friday before Mother’s Day. I searched high and low and finally found a place that said they delivered fruit baskets on Saturdays! Perfect. I ordered her one that had a good mix of fruits and a couple small blocks of cheese. On the gift message, I wrote:
The chocolates were missing,
The flowers limp with disease;
I hope the apples counteract the cheese.
Right after I hit the “order”, I was emailed a message saying they wouldn’t be able to deliver it on Saturday, but would deliver it on the follow Wednesday. I just groaned, but it was the best that I could do.
Fast forward a month. My mom never said ANYTHING about the fruit and cheese. That’s very unlike her, so I finally called the place only to be informed that they no longer do those. What?!?! They why advertise it on your website and for goodness sake why send me a confirmation email telling me that it’ll be delivered on Wednesday?? Craziness.
So….today is Father’s Day, or the “Day of the Father” as my husband refers to it. I had a hard time deciding what to send my dad. My parents fall into the category that I really can’t buy them anything they need but couldn’t get themselves, it’s more of a sentimental token or trinket that I think fits them. This requires a lot of thought. I sent my mom flowers and chocolates (at work) because I knew that wasn’t something she received often. My dad was a bit harder. I pondered it for a few weeks.
Then I was on Amazon and I had a brilliant idea!
My dad is part Indian and some relation of his who was more Indian (I want to say his maternal grandmother) gave him an authentic Indian drum. (Don’t ask any more on that, because I don’t know if she actually lived in the tribe or what.) Anyway, growing up, my dad talked on and on about this drum. A few weeks ago, I put in to go to the Antiques Roadshow, not really believing I’d really get tickets. Surprise, surprise, I did! As you can imagine, my dad wanted me and my mom to bring his drum as one of our items.
That’s fine, but nobody knows anything about it. So my brilliant idea was to buy him a book about Indian drums so he could study up on it and give us a few facts when we go. First, let me tell you, there aren’t a lot of books on this topic. But I scanned through several and found one. Feeling awesome and that I had redeemed myself this year, I sat back yesterday and waited for the text that I knew would come.
Then it came:
Dad says thank you for the romance novel.
With the text were two pictures. One of him holding the book closed, with the cover facing the camera; the second he had the book open to one of the pages in the front where a man and a woman were looking at each other and leaning in for a kiss…
So…to keep in MY tradition of sending a romance novel for Father’s Day, I would like to do so again (this time on purpose) and will send one of my Banks Brothers’ Brides books to a random commenter who dares to expose their own gifting blunder.
*Open internationally, winner selected Tuesday, June 18th.
Finally, I want to wish any father, including my own, or father figure out there who might read my blog a Happy Father’s Day!
Rose Unscripted 