087 - Does it really have to be this difficult???

I decided to return the huge suitcase and buy a smaller one. I have to pay for return shipping, but there's a pre-paid label, so all I have to do is get it to a UPS dropoff location and hand it over. Easy peasy. Except that I have a small car. Small car = small trunk. The suitcase wouldn't fit in my trunk, and because I have a middle console in the back seat, it obscures my vision if I put it there. I also can't figure out where the hell the UPS locations are, because the closest one looks like I'm driving in a square that ends up very close to my house, but the directions take me down one street, along the highway and then back to what appears to be 0.2 miles from my house. I don't understand... The point is moot anyway... like I said, the damn thing won't fit into my car.

Then I remembered that the post office offers free pick ups, so surely UPS does, too... I look to see if I can schedule one. Eureka. I can. Problem solved.

Not so fast... nothing is as simple as it seems. I get to the billing part and it doesn't like what I put in. So I have to call. This is where it gets ridiculous.

The lady says that if I have a pre-paid return label, my no-cost options to return the package are to flag down a passing UPS truck, or drop it off at a UPS location. What are my chances of flagging down a truck? Better than you think - on Monday they are supposed to deliver my other suitcase. So I tell the lady that I have a package coming on Monday, can they pick it up then? Yes - if I hand it directly to the driver. I ask if they can just put a note into the system so I can just leave it on my porch, because I can't sit there all day watching for the UPS driver, and I don't know what time they're delivering it. She can, but it might incur a pickup charge, because now I'm scheduling a pickup.

Seriously?

She says she'll transfer me to the department that can tell me approximately what time my package will be delivered. This guy at least says I can put a note on the box and they should pick it up when they see the return designator on it. They can't tell me what time the package will be delivered, and frankly that doesn't surprise me... I didn't think they could...

So in a nutshell: They are delivering a package to my house on Monday. To schedule a pickup of my other package would cost me $10 even though they're already coming to my house... simply because I want to be proactive about it schedule the pickup. The driver may or may not pick up the package with the note attached to it.

Completely illogical. Sometimes I wonder what I'll blog about today, because nothing ridiculous has happened to me yet... and then there are days like today.

And I'm going to see AC/DC. One of my friends wanted to see them last time they came to town but the tickets were around $150 before all the taxes, convenience fees and we-just-added-this-so-you'd-know-we-were-ripping-you-off fees. This time the tickets are reasonable, so we're going.

I type fast, but they have the online ticket system set to warp speed. You have 30 seconds for this screen, and 1 min for that screen... good grief, there's so much pressure! Despite the time constraints, I made it with time to spare, and we actually got good seats. She's really excited about it, and I'm pretty excited, so I have something else to look forward to. =)