The Bargaining Insomniac

Here I sit at 4AM Saturday morning typing my blog. You may ask why I am doing this? Well, that’s what I’m here to tell you.

I am in Jacksonville. We came here to watch Sophie while K&T took their drum line to the Orlando Magic’s game.

This past Tuesday night that cold I was hoping to avoid finally got its hooks into me and it is still with me. This is reason #1 I am awake. I started coughing and couldn’t go back to sleep. Ah, but that in itself is not sufficient grounds to leave the comfy bed you may say. So I will provide further explanation.

Last Thursday I went in to see my doctor for a normal checkup. If you’ve been reading my blog you know that I have had foot trouble since we went on our razzelberry pie and hiking adventure to Montana’s beautiful Glacier National Park. I explained my problem to the doctor (well, actually it was the PA) and he once again put me on a regimen of Prednisone. I’m hoping this will push my foot into healing. This procedure has provided some relief for me in the past with my hands, my shoulders and my back. The side effects I get are 1, a nice feeling of euphoria (which the cold has completely trashed) and 2, I wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning and can’t go back to sleep. I really thought the cold and the cold medication I’m taking would counter this effect but it didn’t. Instead the coughing awakened me and the Prednisone then took over.

But all is not lost. I do have a follow-on story about my foray into the Borders on line store and my attempt to purchase the Planet Earth complete series (in HD) for $9.99.

I wrote Borders a polite and only slightly ugly e-mail after they cancelled my order. I didn’t get a response so I wrote a second e-mail which again was polite and slightly ugly but this time instead of asking them to make it right I told them (in accordance with all of my “how to negotiate” training) what I thought would be a satisfactory solution. I said I would accept 1 copy of the Planet Earth DVD series –not HD—at the price of $9.99 as a reasonable substitute for the 2 HD copies I had ordered at that price.

After I sent off the 2nd E-mail I got a response to my first and Borders offered me a 40% discount on any single purchase. That’s not too bad but it still was going to cost me more than $9.99. Today I spent most of the day resting because of the cold and Penny checked our e-mails. She brought me the computer after reading an e-mail from Borders. It said that they would sell me the DVD (not HD) for $9.99 and gave me a number to call—so I did.

I made the order. The last thing the girl on the phone said to me was “You got a super deal on this!” I haven’t received an e-mail from them confirming my order yet—but I think I may have won this one.

Yesterday I found another great buy at Buy.com. I could get 2, 4 GB flash drives for $4.99 each with free shipping. I ordered them. I was unpleasantly surprised today when they wrote me telling me they didn’t have the item and were refunding my money. Buy.com has been my favorite site for purchasing on line and this really shocked me. I had their order confirmation saying the item was in stock and they were canceling the order. So, today I wrote them a polite and not so ugly letter and explained how they could make it right for me. It worked with Borders, now we will see how Buy.com responds.

So, now I’ll post this blog, put my feet up and search the internet for more Christmas bargains.