Shopping fail, GPS fail, Samsung mobile fail, Bombers fail

Saturday was an interesting day. If something could fail, it did! This was the last weekend I was spending collecting furniture. I borrowed a ute from work to collect the wardrobe in the morning and that all went amazingly well. It was after the bewitching hour of noon that the failures started!

We had bought, on eBay, two girls beds from a place in the country.  115 kilometres away.  This SHOULD have been a trip straight down the freeway, I discovered – AFTER the event.  Usually when travelling to locations unknown I hit good old www.whereis.com and get a nice map and directions.  This time I decided to depend on the GPS on my Samsung Galaxy SII.  It has been OK around the city.  I had already used it to get to the wardrobe pickup with success but I did notice doing so chewed through the phone battery at an amazing rate.  Although I’d charged the phone again before leaving for trip number two for the day, I was a bit concerned about the distance and the battery life being compatible.  I don’t have a car charger for the phone so on the way I stopped and bought a USB cable.  The Kia has a USB port which we had already used to charge Mr O’s HTC Velocity.  Silly me made the assumption this would also work for my Samsung.  So I bought just the cable, not the USB cable that came with a charger!

Hop back in the car: no charging happening.  Yes, I should have gone back into the shop and changed it over, I suppose, but we were running late now and I thought perhaps it was just a setting on the phone I didn’t know about or something, so I headed off anyway.  The same cable charges Mr O’s phone, so definitely it is my phone that has a problem with being charged via USB in the car.  Bugger!

I got a little suspicious about the GPS when it did not direct me onto the South Gippsland Highway when I felt it should have.  I got much more suspicious when it took me onto that very same highway a little further down the track.  Several tracks, in fact.   I just had nothing to compare it too, so I had to keep believing it.  Next thing we are heading up hills and down dales and nowhere near a highway.  The battery on the phone was starting to cry out for replenishment and I needed enough power left to call the seller.

Finally, at the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere, I was instructed, by the very polite machine, to turn right.  Right into a closed road.  I called the seller and told her I was lost, but not far away.  Turning back, I found a sign to the town and heading in that direction.  When I got to the seller’s place, she told me that the South Gippsland Highway goes right into this particular town.  Checking the trip meter I discovered we had been taken over 40 kilometres out of our way by the lovely GPS.  It was a good scenic trip, but a scenic trip was not on our agenda given we were heading to the Collingwood (Magpies) and Essendon (Bombers) match in the evening and I needed to be home in time to get the monsters in the car!

That is the GPS and the Samsung fails, now the shopping fail.  The beds were not at all as good as the pictures or the description on eBay.   They had been sitting in a garage for quite a while and rust on white doesn’t look too attractive.  I suppose I could have refused to take the beds, but after travelling such a distance, I took them anyway.  We might try cleaning them up and selling them: if we get our money back I will be happy enough.  Overall I’ve been pleased with our eBay purchases so I can’t complain too much about the beds.  Just why did they have to be SO far away?  Strictly speaking, not an eBay fail really: either a buyer fail (me) or a seller fail: not sure which!

Girls at the footy!

We did make it to the football, but only after I thought I had lost the tickets.  I’d taken them out of my handbag in the morning so I didn’t drop them anywhere during the day.  I just forgot where I put them.  Early signs of old age, perhaps.

My team LOST!  They were expected to lose, but that doesn’t mean supporters accept the inevitable!

With 10 minutes to go Mr O Jnr 2 was still telling me, “You can still win this!”

He was right – we could have. But we didn’t.

Today (Sunday) I headed out to collect a tallboy and then decided to take the girls bed shopping.  eBay clearly wasn’t going to provide beds for the girls as it had for the boys.  The beds the girls still have were VERY, VERY temporary ones I bought to last no more than a month: 15 months later, they are still sleeping in the temporary ones!

First stop was a local bed shop I had noticed some time ago, but never visited.  They had a set of bunks with a double on the bottom and a single on the top which is a configuration I have always thought would be good for the girls, but I failed to convince them.  Now they could see it and feel it and try it out, it proved to be a winner in their eyes!

The try before you buy approach!

The added attraction was – SALE! As can be seen from the window decorations.

We then headed to a large shopping centre to compare styles, prices, and anything else girls want to compare. We came back and got the first one.  Which the girls put to more rigorous testing the second time around.

That is IT!  No more shopping and collecting for us for a while.  At least the kids rooms now look tidy……… am I being unrealistic expecting the rooms to stay that way?

I just have to finish off our room now……..