We voted a few weeks ago when we received absentee ballots from our mailing service in Nevada. Immediately upon receipt, we filled them out and brought them downstairs to the front desk. A few days later, I checked to ensure the envelopes were mailed. This hotel’s package and mailing service can be sketchy at times, although it’s been good overall.

With that out of the way, we’ll start watching TV news for results later today and continue watching well into the evening. I suppose from time to time, we’ll take a break and watch a show on one of our streaming apps. Continuously watching the results on the news can be tedious.

Hopefully, election results will be determined in the next few days, and this won’t linger for months. However, it leaves a sense of uncertainty in the country, ultimately unnerving and stressful.

We’re both in a good spot now. I continue to make delicious dinners, albeit with a required amount of chopping and dicing in the tiny kitchen area. Once we sit down for dinner, I’m always pleased I went through the tedious process.

We make a lot of purchases from Amazon. I never go to Walmart, CVS, or Target stores, so we purchase any incidentals through Amazon using the link on our site. We receive a small commission from the transaction to help offset the cost of managing our site.

We’d appreciate it if you could use our links. You pay the same prices if you search for Amazon or the other links on your own, and it also helps us cover some of our site management fees. Simply click on the links on the right side of our page to take you directly to the sites we advertise and place orders as usual.

Anyway, Tom had asked me to order Club Crackers for him. Whole Foods, where we grocery shop (through Amazon’s site), doesn’t carry the brand. Instead, they have their branding, and if they were slightly different, Tom, the picky eater he is, may not like them.

As a result, I ordered the crackers through Amazon for a slightly lower cost than if we’d purchased them at a grocery store. When other items I ordered on the same day arrived without the crackers, I looked at “My Orders” at Amazon to see if a delay was noted. It was not. We waited a week, and then I called Amazon directly.

It’s tricky trying to get a credit online without calling. I suppose they make it challenging to prevent shady customers from scamming them by saying they didn’t receive orders they placed when, in reality, they did. I called the customer service number at 1-888-280-4331 and was only put on hold for about five or six minutes.

When the rep came on the line, she researched my order and found that the driver said they delivered the crackers when, in fact, they ended up back at the Cleveland warehouse. She reordered them for me with an expected delivery date a few days later. Also, she gave me a $3 credit on any future purchase for the delayed item. Good, I was satisfied with the result.

Days passed, and the crackers never arrived. I called Amazon again, and they issued a credit of $15.95 on my credit card. Then, I ordered the crackers at Costco for about the same price as Amazon. They will arrive tomorrow. A few minutes after I placed the Costco order, the Amazon cracker arrived without any mention on the website.

Hmmm…I called Amazon again to ask them to undo the $15.95 credit since the crackers arrived. We’d never fail to let them know we received the crackers and take advantage of the credit. It took 25 minutes on the phone, talking to three different reps, to finally get to the correct person who could undo the credit.

The rep profusely thanked me for reporting that we received the crackers and asking them to undo the credit. You’d think I’d given them something extraordinary. To us, it was simple honesty. We always go by the adage, “What goes around, comes around.”  We could not attempt to “get away with it.” We aren’t unique. We’re practical.

After the rep, who had a recognizable accent, I couldn’t quit place, took care of reversing the credit, continually mentioning how rarely this happens, and somehow mentioned he was from Cape Town, South Africa. From there, a conversation about our experiences and love of South Africa ensued, and we spent no less than 45 minutes chatting and laughing. He was delightful. He looked up our site and enthusiastically said he’d follow us.  He loved the photos of all of the wildlife in his home country.

Before I knew it, it was time for dinner, and I apologized, telling JD that I had to go but thoroughly enjoyed our chat. He raved that I inspired him to “think outside the box” for his future and that he’d never forget our chat. I will, too. It was so refreshing. It is serendipitous how we encounter special people in our lives, often in the most peculiar ways. It was a unique, although simple, experience.

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, November 5, 2014: