BOXING WITH THE BIG ORANGE BOX STORE

I hope everyone had a relaxing and reflective Memorial Day weekend. I hope you observed a moment of silence or said a prayer for all those who Have Served our Country in the Military and especially for those who paid the ultimate price in that service.

We got alot of errands run and went down the mountain to the BIG ORANGE BOX STORE to pick out carpeting for my daughter's room and buy a patio set.
So I am wating now for the 'measuring gal' to come to measure the room for the carpet. The patio delivery was suppose to be today but after yesterday's phone call, we cancelled that order.
After hubby got off the phone, he looked at me and said slowly in a measured tone, "Home Depot....Bad, Lowe's....Good". I had totally forgotten about the debacle last year with the tile floor, we had installed in the kitchen, that HOME DESPOT botched. *INSERT V-8 Moment here*

Hubby had an accident with a melted aluminum clad pan about 16 months ago. He cooked my brand new Emeril Ware pan til the bottom melted and then slung the pan from the stove to the sink. The little droplets of melted metal hit the vinyl floor and sizzled merrily.


So we took up the vinly in prep for the new tile floor we arranged for HD to lay, only to find that the vinyl floor was NOT original to the house....there was another vinyl floor under it! After removing 2 layers of floor we waited for the tilers to arrive......and waited......and waited......

Yes, a simple tile floor install took 2+ months because the ninnies at HD couldn't even order the correct tile! We had to keep sending it back and reordering. Then when they got that right, the installer came and did the install but kept trying to get me to ok additional side things for additional money-off the books & directly into his pocket of course. Then he stole leftover tiles AND left trash all over my garage where he did the tile cutting and grout/mortar mixing.
For those 2+ months, I had an non-functioning kitchen-a plywood floor and no stove/oven and the kitchen island was living out under a tarp on the deck. And what do I get from THE DESPOT for my $2500.00? Not even a 'Gee, we're so sorry we inconveninced you GREATLY and screwed everything up and turned your home into a Living Hell for 3 months!, that's what!!

So it really shouldn't have surprised me that when we bought the patio set on Sunday that we'd have problems.
First off, they had no tables umbrellas or stands left, just the display model, which of course, they wouldn't even give us a discount on as it was a shopworn floor model. Of course, it never crossed their minds to offer to call the OTHER HOME DESPOT a half hour away to see if THEY had those pieces in stock.
Then they charged us a $60 delivery fee, when I can go online and order this stuff from the website and get FREE DELIVERY as the total is over $49.
But we went ahead and bought it, to just GIT R DONE and arranged for a Wednesday delivery.
Phone call from HD comes in Tueday late afternoon. There is a 'problem' delivering our set b/c the table/umbrella/stand are NOT in boxes-yes, we know that....they are the DISPLAY MODELS.
Everything on the truck has to be boxes so they have to take apart the table and find boxes to put all 3 items in before they will deliver them. So.....I buy a table that's scratched up but I at least don't have to assemble it and they are going to take it apart(I didn't even get a chance to ask if they were going to CHARGE me additional to do that!)and throw it in a box-that it doesn't neccessarily fit in properly so it could get even MORE DINGED UP and then they are going to drive it about 8 WHOLE MILES up the Mountain and I get the priviledge of paying them $60 for this?
Ummmm....on second thought, I don't THINK so! I told them they can save themselves all that trouble and KEEP their overpriced crap patio set.

So I will continue to be patio set-less until I can get to LOWE'S or some other store where at least the management staff's knuckles don't drag the ground when they walk.

sluggy