I have never gone through more for an online purchase than what I went through for my new Nikon Coolpix L320. The whole point of shopping online is just to hit a couple clicks, pay, and wait for it to arrive. I wish that were the case.
When I learned that several stores were marking down cameras for Black Friday, I looked at each one, read reviews and went back and forth between which one I should get. The fiancé was paying for it as a late birthday gift and as much as I wanted to get a really expensive DSLR, I decided to start small as a way to show my commitment to photography. It’s something that I have become fond of since I started this blog and stalking other people’s lives on their blogs.
Anyway, I am not one to leave the Thanksgiving table to rush to stores for the best deals. I hate crowds and I just knew that wouldn’t be a fun experience for me. So, I did the next logical thing and bought the camera online on Thanksgiving. A couple days passed, then a week passed and I was getting really worried. I live in an apartment complex and the mail carriers usually just leave my packages outside my door, but everyday I came home from work, I was disappointed. Something was wrong so I began tracking the package and learned that it was in Newark, DE, which is about an hour away from my house. Bet, it should be there tomorrow. Nope.
Well, it did say that it was going to ship between the 9th and the 11th. Those days came and went and I still didn’t have a package on my welcome mat. The fiancé called Thursday and Friday so I decided to call Saturday. I spoke to a woman and explained to her that according to the tracking service, my package has been sitting in Newark for over a week. Because my fiancé kind of works in that line of business, I knew logistically, having a package just sitting around didn’t make sense. She put me on hold to see what was going on.
A couple minutes later, she returned to the phone call informing me that she is sorry the camera is no longer on sale and I have two options: get a refund and/or go to some store in this seemingly random town and buy it from them. I was beyond annoyed. It’s bad enough I have been waiting all this time for a camera that never showed up, but now, I have to go out of my way to get a new one because the delivery service the retailer use lost my package?! Oh, she could also give me a $10 gift card, which I did take because I would be a fool not to.
Welp. We decided to pick up the camera before my aunt’s surprise birthday party, which was later postponed because of the weather. And it’s a good thing too. When we went to pick up the camera, it was so nasty. Cars were all iced over from the wintry mix. Some looked completely frozen with ice surrounding the entire body of the car. Trucks had icicles hanging from the bumper. It was really bad out, but I got my camera and I have been taking bad pictures ever since. If that doesn’t speak to my commitment, I don’t know what does.
