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Amazon.com: from Shane to Old Fart

A human being named Dhruba—and not a tentacled alien monster—answered my plea for help regarding my emptied Amazon.com shopping cart.

Thanks for writing us at Amazon.com.

I am sorry you encountered problems while using our web site.

Here are some suggestions that usually help:

Dhruba’s helpful suggestions included clearing my cache and my cookies and refreshing my screen, obvious things I’d already tried. I wrote back to complain my cart was still empty and then I went to bed, visions of Home Depot gift cards dancing in my head.

This morning brought another response, this time from an Amazon customer service rep named Raja:

I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had trouble with your shopping cart.

Your Shopping Cart is related to your Amazon.com account. If you create your list while you are logged into your account, and then log out, your items will seem to disappear. If this is the case, you should be able to retrieve your cart by simply logging back into your account.

This is a basic concept of e-commerce I already understood, but which Raja probably has to politely explain it to thousands of clueless Amazon shoppers every single day; clueless, angry shoppers—shoppers who might accuse Raja of nefarious things, like trying to cheat them, or of being a tentacled alien who laughs maniacally at customer distress.

In fact, I expect Raja probably longs to express something other than the polite, apologetic message she typed out for the quadrillionth time, something along these lines:

If you create your list while you are logged into your account, and then log out, your items will seem to disappear. If this is the case, carefully insert your keyboard into your lower body internal cavity and see if that helps retrieve the contents of your shopping cart.

All politeness aside, my cart was still empty. As I prepared to close the e-mail and take my future Christmas shopping elsewhere, I saw I’d overlooked the end of Raja’s message:

As you are our old customer, I’m issuing a Promotional Gift Certificate of $10.00 which can be used for your future purchases.

Woo hoo! Ten dollars! Now I’m back to the amount I originally expected to pay when I first put my items into my cart, before Amazon raised the prices! In fact, now I’m ahead by five bucks!

I do appreciate good customer service. It’s good, old-fashioned customer service like this that will keep me coming back to Amazon again and ag—

Hey! Who is Raja calling “old”?

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Amazon.com: from stressed to Shane

A few days ago I wrote about my experiences with the changing prices of items in my Amazon shopping cart. Today I write that those problems are no more!

Why? Because today when I logged in to my account I found yet another one of those Amazonian messages:

Picture of my shopping cart: empty!

My cart is EMPTY. And I didn’t empty it.

I only recently started filling it for Christmas shopping so it couldn’t possibly have approached Amazon’s 90-day limit for holding items, either.

So. Where did all my stuff go?

I checked my ordering history to see if, perhaps, there was a perfectly logical reason for my empty cart, like how I might’ve checked out while I was sleepwalking.

No such luck. Nothing in my previous orders and nothing in my cart.

I wrote to Amazon’s Help Center and am awaiting a response, but I can’t help but wonder if there’s some prankster Amazonian out there in cyberspace, one who took offense to my previous opinion about Amazon.com. I picture him as a tentacled, three-eyed creature laughing maniacally at confused shoppers like me as he changes our prices and empties our carts.

Maybe he not only emptied my cart but is now waiting for my “Help!” message to flitter across the Amazonian support boards so that he and all the other tentacled creatures can laugh at us. Maybe he will respond, too, with a witty yet sardonic retort:

Amazonian: Whatsa matter, crybaby? Something wrong with your cart?

I will answer that response with witty yet sardonic repartee all my own:

Bonnie: Please, please, PLEASE give it back! That stuff was mine! PLEASE PUH-LEASE?

Perhaps the Amazonian will wave his tentacles and laugh at me because I am groveling. “Stand up and fight!” you might urge me, because you only have my best interest at heart and don’t want to see me cowed all my life by e-commerce bullies.

Really, it’s awfully hard to stand up and fight when you hate to shop and it took you 2 weeks just to make your list and check it thirty times and you only want to shop in PEACE… but okay, I’ll do it.

Bonnie: Amazonian Creature, GIVE ME BACK MY STUFF! Or, I’ll….

Amazonian: (sneering) You’ll do what?

Bonnie: I’ll, I’ll….

Amazonian: Cry? Ha, ha, HA!

Right about then I’ll have been pushed to the point of no return. I’ll flick my credit card at him and it will fly through the air in slow motion, end over end, traveling through time and space and my computer screen, until it reaches the braying Amazonian Creature and slices his head clean off.

As his lifeless body slumps over his computer, his scaly hand will fall upon the button that not only refills my cart, but also refills empty carts everywhere, giving all of us customers the original, cheaper prices, too!

Amidst all the cheering, I’ll check out quickly (but modestly) stopping only to look both ways to make certain no frothing and vengeful Amazonian creatures are bearing down on me.

On the other hand, I think almost everybody loves a Home Depot gift card for Christmas, don’t you?

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Remembering Pearl Harbor

Three San Diegans remember Pearl Harbor in today’s Union-Tribune and North County Times. The first, Dorothy Hargrave, was 30 at the time and training a new waitress in a Pearl City restaurant where she worked while her husband’s ship took him to California for repairs.

At 7:50 a.m. on Dec. 7, Hargrave and the new waitress were waiting for the only customer – a young lieutenant – to finish his breakfast.

The two women looked out the window, hearing planes zoom low overhead. At first, Hargrave thought they were U.S. fighters. Then she heard bullets slap the ground and saw flames shooting from a nearby building.

“The lieutenant said to me, ‘Dorothy, we are at war,'” Hargrave recalled last week at her home in San Diego.

“Who could we be at war with?” she asked the officer.

He replied: ‘We’re at war with Japan.'”

[…]

Minutes after the first wave of planes swept over Pearl Harbor, people began straggling into the restaurant. Some of them were families from nearby housing. Later came some oil-stained sailors who swam ashore from battleship row.

The lieutenant made Dorothy the group’s chief nurse. She gathered her charges in the center of the building and tore up sheets to make bandages. She calmed the group by leading them in “Jesus Loves Me” and “Over the Rainbow” even as bombs destroyed airplanes and ships all around Ford Island.

Through a window, they could see the burning hulk of the battleship Arizona.

“It was scary,” Dorothy said. “We thought we would be prisoners of the Japanese before the day was over.”

The attack lasted two hours. Afterward, Dorothy caught a boat ride back to the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard. Then someone drove her home to Pearl City in a van with a bullet hole in the roof.

“One Terrible Day: A young Navy wife meets the test of fire,” by Steve Liewer, San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 7, 2005

Joe Kawka, was a 19-year-old signalman on the destroyer Cassin and remembers the Japanese planes were so close “he could see a pilot’s face.”

His ship was in dry dock for repairs and the guns on deck were out of commission. Instead, the sailors fought back with the only ammunition they had.

“We started throwing potatoes at them. We almost got them, too,” Kawka said.

[…]

Then a second wave of 170 planes attacked. Kawka could see a pilot in the open cockpit.

“He shook his hand at us as he went by,” Kawka said.

A bomb landed between the Cassin and the ship next to it. The crew scrambled to get off the ship, climbing down ropes to escape.

Kawka took cover with other sailors for the rest of the day. The next day, with nothing but the clothes he was wearing, he was ordered to another ship that was hunting for Japanese subs outside the harbor.

“The chaos of that day isn’t easily forgotten,” by Anne Krueger, San Diego Union-Tribune, Dec. 7, 2005

23-year-old Ernie Lippman was a second class radioman on the USS San Francisco. He’d just started his shift when he heard bombing.

Running on deck to see what was happening, Lippmann made it there in time to see airplanes in the sky with the Rising Sun on their fuselages and a torpedo plane drop a bomb that drove into the body of the USS Oklahoma. Although his cruiser was not hit, Lippmann said, he was still frightened for his life.

“One of my thoughts was, ‘Oh God, I won’t see my 24th birthday,’ ” Lippmann said. “I’m glad to be alive; I was spared, I guess.”

“Escondido man recalls attack on Pearl Harbor,” by Jessica Musicar, North County Times, Dec. 7, 2005.

And here’s an online reminiscence that must not be misssed, taken from a teenager’s diary. B.Z. Leonard was 17 and living in Hickman Field, Hawaii when the attack occurred.

Sunday, December 7, 1941

BOMBED! 8:00 in the morning. Unknown attacker so far! Pearl Harbor in flames! Also Hickam hanger line. So far no houses bombed here.

5 of 11:00. We’ve left the post. It got too hot. The PX is in flames, also the barracks. We made a dash during a lull. Left everything we own there. Found out the attackers are Japs. Rats!!! A couple of non-com’s houses demolished. Hope Kay is O.K. We’re at M’s. It’s all so sudden and surprising I can’t believe it’s really happening. It’s awful. School is discontinued until further notice…there goes my graduation.

Shortwave: Direct hit on barracks, 350 killed. Wonder if I knew any of them. Been quiet all afternoon. Left Bill on duty at the U. Blackout all night of course!

“Ginger’s Diary,” by B.Z. Leonard.

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Big ole’ butts need big ole’ needles

Scientists discovered hypodermic needles are too short for today’s world of super-sized bottoms, and headline writers all over the world rejoiced!

The Daily Mail: “Jabs don’t work on fat-bottomed girls”

The Sun: “Docs stumped by rumps”

The Mirror: “BUM JABS FOR FATTIES”

Australia: “Obesity a bummer for GPs’ needles”

South Africa: “Doctors make no butts about needle issue”

Canada: “FATTER BUTTS NEED LONGER NEEDLES”

Boston: “Docs: Needles have fat chance against big butts”

Tennessee: “Bountiful booties, short needles lead to ineffective meds”

ABC News: “Obese Buttocks Leave Drug Therapy Behind”

Scripps Media: “Fat heinies causing problems for doctors”

My personal favorite:

Baby got back? Junk in the trunk? A J.Lo butt?

She may be bootylicious, but it’s bad for her health.

HamptonRoads.com, Virginia: “If your baby got back, she may be missing the point,” Nov. 29, 2005.

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The Sith Sense: better than Magic 8-Ball

Pic of Vader

This was freaky. Ole’ Mr. Sith asked me to picture an object in my mind so he could guess it in 20 questions, so I pictured the fat sausage at my feet: our English Bulldog, AKA Mojo the Flatulent.

Mojo the Flatulent

Then LV asked me some questions, and I really thought I had him — I mean, the questions were innocuous little things like, “Can you buy this at a store?” (yes, even though you NEVER should) and “Can it swim?” (no, because despite them being the biggest gas balloons in the universe, they sink like rocks).

Vader’s all, “This is a battle of wits, and you are woefully unprepared,” and I’m all, “You’re going down, Vader!” because I’m thinking he just might be able to come up with “parakeet” if he’s lucky, when out of nowhere the Man in Black asks me if I’m thinking of an English Bulldog.

Dang, he’s good.

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Jib Jab’s Big Box Mart

Jib Jab Jib Jab just keeps cranking out some good ones, and this time they’ve got a cast of a little over a thousand Jib Jab fans. Keep an eye out for Governor Arnie posing on a billboard.

“BIG BOX MART is the very unfortunate story of a hard working American worker done in by an addiction to every day low prices…”

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Earthquake in Pakistan

Amount Pakistan pledged to Hurricane Katrina victims through the Red Cross: $1 million.

Amount US government pledged to October 2005 Pakistani Earthquake victims (as of today’s writing): $100,000.

“Our initial deployments of assistance are under way, and we stand ready to provide additional assistance as needed,” President George W Bush said.

“Foreign aid effort gets under way,” BBC News, Oct. 9, 2005.

More funding will probably be sent to Pakistan. Maybe I don’t understand how these things work but really, can’t Pakistan’s pledge to the Red Cross be given back now that it obviously needs the money more than the Gulf States do?

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Ramadan

There was a beautiful crescent moon tonight, which reminded me it’s the first night of Ramadan.

If I have a stereotypical view of Muslims, it was formed during my friendship with Negya. Not only did she introduce me to rose water and fillo dough, she and her family put a human face on Islam for me.

So when I hear the word “Islam” I don’t think of “Jihad.” I can’t. I think of gentle Negya, or her parents, or Negya’s husband and their beautiful, beautiful daughters.

I hope all Muslims enjoy a blessed Ramadan.