I’ve been wearing dangly earrings to work lately (more to downplay my unusually prominent (prevalent?) sideburns than anything). When I wear dangly earrings, I must wear them with those clear things behind them so that they don’t fall out. In my hurry two days ago, I managed to put on one earring with the clear thing and one without. I remember telling myself that the fact that I did this knowingly is a guarantee that I will lose one earring.

During the day I kept patting my ears to make sure the earrings were still there.

Then I went out walking at lunch time.

When I returned to the office and went to put my dirty cup into the dishwasher, my earring fell into the dishwasher. “How fortuitous!” I thought, “How wonderful that I lost the earring at work instead of when I was outside earlier in the day.”

Until a quick pat of my other ear confirmed what I should have known would happen: the other earring was gone too.

The earrings weren’t expensive (70% off!) but they had come with a necklace too so I wasn’t eager to duplicate the necklace (I suppose I could give it along with the spare earring to the next girl I meet sporting only one pierced ear because that’s all the rage right now). The plan was to pick up a new earring set yesterday at the mall where my part time job is.

On my way to work yesterday, I pulled out my extremely warm and thick scarf to protect my face from the elements and what should I see clinging firmly to the scarf but the other earring! It was a welcome surprise.

*
I went to a restaurant just over two weeks ago to celebrate the 30th birthday of a friend. The service I received at the restaurant was not memorable: the waitress forgot to take my order, forgot to bring me my drink, twice[it was only iced tea so I don't think she was exercising her right to cut me off the hard stuff]. I think she was perhaps overwhelmed by the size of our group and couldn’t get everything together and coincidentally all the errors or slow service affected me [I say this without sarcasm; sometimes things just happen that way].

I paid my bill, added a tip that reflected that I’ve had better service but I had no hard feelings, and went on my merry way. I received my credit card statement two days ago and I was surprised to see two charges from the restaurant: one was the total of my bill without tip, the other the amount with tip, the amount I remember paying. Puzzled, I consulted my bill [I keep all debit and credit card bills and compare them to my statements before throwing them away], only to discover what I suspected: the first charge was an accident.

Not known for mansuetude, I called the restaurant and explained my situation, and offered to come to their restaurant, credit card in hand, to get the matter sorted out. Instead, I was asked if I had dined with a large group (I had) and then told that one of my fellow diners was probably not charged. This was said accusingly, as if we had orchestrated it. What must have happened is that someone received and was asked to sign a VISA statement from my card! I think I should be worried that the wait staff don’t double check card numbers, or keep track of which cards they have swiped in connection with which bill! I was asked to fax the pertinent information to him which I did.

Now, remember my intuition from the day before? The one that told me that I’d lose my earring? That same feeling suggested that there is a chance that this restaurant might give me a hard time and to that end I should document everything. So instead of just faxing over my statement, I added a typed letter to this fax that detailed everything, and I made sure I had a confirmation that the fax went through. I had to call the restaurant back to obtain the name of the man who had talked to me and he gave me his first name. I politely asked for his last name, which he gave curtly and dropped the phone in such a way that it cut me off (!) and left me expressing my thanks to a dial tone.

Perhaps the professional tone of my letter (I know! Me? Professional?!??) worried him because I received a call today from a much politer version of this guy, asking me to call him so that we can fix this problem as soon as possible. I called him back and he said that he checked and indeed I had been doubly charged. He then offered me two options:

a) I go to my bank and get a “charge back” applied to my account

b) He mails (or I pick up) a gift card for the restaurant at a value approximately 6 dollars more than my over charge amount [to bring it to a nice round number].

He asked if I needed the money right now and suggested that if I didn’t (which I agreed with) then we could go with the gift card option. I agreed but then I remembered two things:

1. I have over a hundred dollars in gift cards from various places that I haven’t used, some for over two years. I ended up using one recently only because the giver asked me if I had used it and I felt a bit guilty. The problem isn’t that I don’t want to use the cards, but rather I never have them around when I want to use them!.

2. That was my first time going to that restaurant…there are a few other restaurants in that area that I frequent and there is nothing that would make me return to that restaurant over any of these others that I’m more familiar with so why should I have my money tied up with them?

So now I have to call the guy back and say “actually, the charge back option works best for me”. I feel bad but I always was the sort to act first, think later. And the cynic in me just thought of something else (belatedly as usual): with option b), they get extra money because they overcharged me AND they stand to get more money because now I have to go back there if I want to get my money back. So option a) is the only one that makes sense. If I choose to eat there again, at least it won’t be because I have to.

Important lessons learned:
*keep your receipts and scan your credit card statements from time to time
*if you don’t worry about something you’re looking for, you’ll probably find it sooner
*earrings are practical jokers

Update is here.

Filed under: Adventure, Eating, Outrospective, WurdyGurdy by jummy