LOWes Sucks...and not in the good way!

BearTown 14 was this past weekend. Partner and I enjoyed ourselves and thought the events came off (mostly) without a hitch, but much of it seemed almost too professionally produced. Call it "IBR Jr." One of the biggest problems with the weekend was the bus that they hired. In the past we used a local school bus company, and our friend (and Bears member) Johnny (who works for that company) always volunteered to be our main driver for the whole weekend. This year the committee went with another company, totally excluding that company and our friend. On top of that, the drivers didn't always know where they were going, and I heard one story where a driver got snippy with a guest when he (the driver) was informed that he didn't go where he was supposed to. Johnny never would've done that.


Partner and I just got back from LOWes after buying a small table for our deck. When we got it home, I noticed that the box was sealed with a lot of packing tape, which I told Partner was a "bad sign." Sure enough, after spending 10 minutes putting it together, I realized that one of the parts was defective. I tried fixing it, but then I concluded that, if I broke it, we wouldn't be able to return it, so I stopped. Two things really piss me off about this whole event: 1) the last item I bought at LOWes was also defective and needed returning; and 2) the table looked like it was returned to the store as defective, then the store turned around, repackaged it and tried selling it again. True, I can't be sure about this last part, but the box had at least been opened before, and I can just imagine someone at the store deciding to resell it in the hopes that the next sucker/buyer would try to fix it rather than return it. That really ticks me off, and I don't plan on shopping there again if I can at all help it. (Of course, I hated Amazon at one point and still shopped from them, so who knows?)


I've been on a yard-work kick lately, planting flowers and edging the lawn with bark mulch. I was going to trim some of the laurel hedges around the house, but this experience with the table has taken the wind out of my sails. Now I just want to sit and sulk. Actually, venting like this has been helpful, so maybe I'll get up and do something productive after all...