The Problems Unfold

I continue to cope with the fallout of Christmas. Installing the Blu Ray player, sending off the expired coupon that Santa gave Lamb in a Littlest Pet Shop toy, and now two more toys are causing problems.

Lamb loves stuffed animals, so the Printies gift seemed ideal. Sadly, as I logged in yesterday to set up the account, I made it all the way to the end of step 3 (of 4) where the system just stopped working. No matter how many times I clicked the final registration button. Eeven--though I knew it was futile--resorting to the magical thinking logic of altering how I clicked the button: lightly, hard, twice quickly, presssing and holding. Even that didn't work. But a little girl who wants to make a stuffed animal she designs needs to see daddy working the problem.

So when it was time to resort to finding a help line, to my surprise it was not terribly easy to find methods of contact on the web site. I finally found a contact form that I filled out--until I noticed that it required me to supply my user name and password along with the code that comes with the product. Well.

One, two, three ...

BUT THE ENTIRE POINT OF CONTACTING THE COMPANY IS THAT I CANNOT GET YOUR SYSTEM TO ACCEPT MY EFFORT TO GET A USER NAME AND PASSWORD!

There. I feel somewhat better.

So I look at the instructions and box. There was no toll free number anywhere on either. Of course.

But I'm a researcher. A couple years ago I found the obscure contact email for a small toy company that sold a chess set with too many knights and not enough bishops. The company representative was absolutely great and offered to ship a new set (and better one, because they had no more of the smaller set) even though I just wanted to trade pieces with her.

I found the parent company name on the site (Techno Source USA) and searched for that. Within 5 minutes I had a page with a contact form (without the annoying part about user name and password) and an actual email! And it was for the US office of the company! Ka-ching!

So yesterday I emailed "pat"--if that is indeed the name prior to the ampersand--and explained that their site will not let me click that registration button. We shall see if I get any relief.

And at least this wasn't a Santa problem since Mister gave this present to Lamb.

The other problem wasn't that severe but was annoying. Lamb likes artsy stuff and science stuff. So I wanted her to have another science set. She loves her "totally weird science" kit. And when I found a "mind blowing science" kit online, I jumped on it.

Yesterday, Lamb and I opened it up. And low and behold, it slowly dawned on me that the project I was opening up was just a repackaged version of the original kit from another company. Well. That's awkward.

Not being known for being slow to think on my feet, I exploited this lacuna in my gift giving (after subtle prods to confirm that this duplicate was not a Santa present and that the slime-making kit was a Santa gift--and not vice versa) by muttering that Santa--of course--wouldn't have made the mistake of sending you a duplicate gift. Maybe, I offered, Santa sent the slime kit knowing I'd screwed up? Hmm. Just maybe.

But the science kit was fun anyway. We started one project that we had to interrupt to allow the first part to dry. And then we spent quite a lot of time with the always fun "volcano" experiment.

Ah, the "problems" of the comfortable American middle class that I deal with. How do I endure?