Vent Time!!

Well, I made it a little over a week before I found something to complain about, but the record is over.  I had a good run, but I have to break the cycle of cheery and upbeat to spend this morning complaining about my Sunday.

Bring on the RANT!

So, yesterday I needed to get the photos of my kiddos printed out.  Their "graduation" photos.  I really didn't want to have to go out yesterday, because I was out most of the day on Saturday, but I figured it wouldn't take long to get some photos printed.

HA!

My plan was to order my photos online then run to the store and pick them up.  Well, once I got my photos uploaded, my only options come check out was 1 hour photo (twice the price) or site to store delivery which said they'd be ready on Monday.  Which is ridiculous, if you think about it.  They aren't shipping my photos, they're still printing them right there in the store.  So, I decided to call the store and ask them if they'd go ahead and print them if I went ahead and ordered them.  Know what they told me?  If the site says they'd be ready tomorrow, that's when they'd be ready.  Well, thanks a lot.  Nice customer service right there.  What the guy did tell me, though, is that I could bring my phone in to the store, upload my photos, and the 1-hour photo service was only 15 cents a photo. OK... so I'd only have to be at the store for an hour.  I could give up an hour to get the photos printed.

So, I drive to my local Walmart.  

When I get there, I discover the photo center is going through some renovations.  There are signs up everywhere telling me that the photo lab closes at 3PM due to new machines being installed.  Information I wished the guy on the phone had told me.  There are still two stations set up, but when I try and plug in my phone I kept getting an error message.  I call for an associate to help me out, and she tells me they took out the machine that morning that allows phone uploads.  Great.  I'm a little agitated by this point.

She tells me I can download an app called KickSend and that would send my photos straight to the lab.  The next problem I encounter is having no cell signal in the store.  So, I go back outside to get some cell signal long enough to download the app.  But, it takes freakin' forever.  Well, twenty minutes actually.  The wi-fi they usually have at McDonald's is down, and I have to use the low signal I have outside the store to download the app.  Half an hour later, I have downloaded the app, uploaded the photos, and sent them to the store to be printed.

I go back to the photo lab to speak to the associate that originally helped me.  I ask her if she can make sure she got the order.  She tells me that it takes a few minutes for them to receive it, but if I got the onscreen confirmation that it went through, they'd be ready in about 30 minutes.  I was then told I'd get a text message when the photos were ready.  

OK, so I had arrived at the store at 11:10.  It was 11:45 by the time I had sent the photos to the lab to be printed.  I decided to go and do some shopping while I was waiting.

I did manage to find a couple of adorable butterfly chairs on sale for $10 a piece.  They are usually $20, and I've always wanted a couple for my classroom.  So, I got a pink one and a blue one.  I then bought some supplies for the kids to make picture frames for their photos.  I moseyed around the toy department still on the hunt for the police badges, and doing some mental Christmas shopping.  The next thing I know it's 12:45, and I still haven't received a text message about my photos.  So, I head on over to the photo lab.  There's a new person there, now, and I ask her about my photos.  She goes over to the photo area, no photos.  She goes to the computer, no record of an order.

Are.  You.  Freaking.  Kidding.  Me?

I give her the whole spill about being at the store since 11, and what I was told about the app I downloaded.  She then says very nonchalantly "Oh, yeah, we've been having trouble with that app".  Really?  You have, have you?  Information that would have been REALLY nice to know TWO hours ago!

She then tells me I can try it again while I'm standing there, and she'd make sure I'd have my photos in about 30-45 minutes.  Urm, no thank you.  I was so furious by this point, I just turned and walked away.  Not before telling her I was driving my happy behind to Walgreens... because I'd pay extra to have some decent customer service.

After checking out and driving to Walgreens, I get there at 1:15.  I have now spent two hours trying to get these photos printed.  I walk in to Walgreens, sit down at one of the stations, and upload the photos from my phone.  I'm told via onscreen message that my photos would be ready in about 30 minutes.  There's a lady standing behind the counter, however, and I begin to tell her about the craziness I'd been through with Walmart.  She then tells me she'll get my photos printed straight away.  

Ten minutes later, I have my photos.  When she sees the photos as they're printing, she asks me about them.  I tell her what I'm doing with my kiddos, so she tells me that she's even going to give me a 15% discount because of how much trouble I'd been through and for what I was doing with my kiddos.  How awesome is that?  

I'm walking out of Walgreens by 1:35, photos in hand, and cheaper than if I'd stayed at Walmart.

I can't believe I didn't just go there in the first place.  I would have saved myself two hours of my day, and the $70 I spent moseying around the store for that long buying supplies for my classroom and home.  And to think, I thought I'd save some money by going to Walmart.  HA!

So, with all of this complaining, I'm happy to end with a giant kudos for Walgreens.  They have definitely earned my repeat business.  I will be going back there any time I need photos printed, and I now have the Walgreens app so I can save myself a few dollars and make my life a whole lot easier in the future.  

When I get home, it's close to 2PM.  Three hours after I had left for the quick run to the store.  I'd hoped the fun would stop there, and I could just settle down to finish my laundry and get my work done.

No such luck.  

When I get home, Hubby informs me that our cats have fleas.  Awesome.  Just what I needed to make my day even better.  So, I spent the next hour trying to give the cats flea baths.  That was fun.  I had the dry bath kind of flea spray, but they HATE it.  I end up getting scratched and running around the house chasing the cats.  I finally got them doused in the spray, but then it's striping bedding and stuff to make sure we get rid of them from the beds and furniture.  Thankfully, it looks as though we caught them early.  Hubby had only seen one on Katniss before I got home, and I didn't see any while I was spraying the cats.  

Poor Jelly wasn't so lucky, though.  She seems to be allergic to flea bites, and is covered in hives.  Being that the cats spend a lot of time in her room, we think she may have gotten bitten in her bed.  So, I striped off her bed, but made Hubby run to the store to buy spray for all of her stuffed animals.  

Apparently the Walmart curse was contagious, yesterday, because when he gets to Walmart he finds that they have no power.  So, he can't buy anything.  He made the drive for nothing.  Neither of us felt like driving to the next town over, so we decide to shut off her room and do what we can to clean up with what we had.  This morning he's going to stop and buy sprays and flea collars and then douse the house down when he gets home from work.  

Not exactly the Sunday I'd planned on having, that's for sure.  I hate fleas, and I refuse to have them in my house.  Having indoor cats and kids that like to play outside makes it kind of inevitable that we're going to have a few from time to time, though.  I just have to stop everything and do what I can to get rid of them.  Poor Hubby will have the worst part, though.  He gets to come home from work and spray everything and vacuum.  I took care of the flea baths and cleaning the bedding, but we both know that's not enough.  We'll still have to do it all over again in a few days, just to make sure they're gone.  

After all that fun, I finally settled down to get some work done after dinner, and then I was up until 10PM getting everything finished up.  

This morning, we have to leave early so that I can get to school and print out the lesson plans for my sub.  I didn't have time to finish them on Friday because I had to go pick up Butter from practice.  That's one job I don't like leaving until the last minute, but I had to do what I had to do.  I managed to get everything else taken care of, just have to print those out when I drop off the kids, and I'll be good to go.  I just hope that Butter's appointment is over quickly this morning so I can hurry and get back.

OK, so I'm ready to leave these rants behind me and start another fun, adventurous new week.

Have a good Monday, everyone!!