Have You Ever?

Ten years ago when we put a shower/tub surround in our bathroom, I bought two corner shelves so we had a place to put our personal items. At the time I was addicted to QVC and that is where I found the shelves. They were a godsend for me. About a year ago one of them fell down. There was still enough sticky substance on the pads that enabled me to put it back up and it held a little while longer. The next time it fell down, it stayed down. The other one lasted a bit longer and eventually would not stay up either. I researched the company only to find they have gone out of business.

For many months now I have been operating without extra storage space in the shower. And that makes me very unhappy. I hate having to put bottles of shampoo and conditioner in the corners of the tub. I finally relented to the fact that I should maybe try one of those tension rods with baskets. I don't really like them and I never wanted one in my tub. But there comes the day when one realizes if one wants storage one must work with what is available. We can't use the type that fit over the shower.

Over the weekend we went shopping for one of those freaky tub pole things. Against my better judgment. Lucky for us, the first store we set foot in had them on sale. Gee, did we want brushed nickel? Or maybe chrome? Oh God no, I do not want chrome. Perhaps we could buy the white coated metal. One day I want to need something, walk into a store for it, and find one kind only staring back at me, as if to say, your wish is our command.

I finally decided on the white coated creature. They were out of the nickel, and as I said chrome is no longer in my vocabulary, so the choice was fairly easy. This time. Next time I need something maybe I won't be this lucky. I hate standing there checking every little detail out before making a decision to purchase. It's one of my bad habits. And it drives my husband insane. Sometimes that's a fun thing to do.

The night we bought it, I took it into the bedroom and emptied the box onto the bed. With the instructions in hand, I went over all the pieces I was supposed to have. And as I was doing that I was not paying any attention to the condition of certain pieces. Why would I? I was too dang excited about finally solving one very big problem.

There was one piece missing. A small round white plastic ring. I don't even know where it goes or what it will be used for, but as I started taking note of the rest of the pieces I finally figured out that someone else had bought this very same box. And when they found that one tiny piece was missing, they returned everything to the store and probably never mentioned a missing piece. Apparently the people at the store never looked inside the box because it found its way back onto the shelf.

It never occurred to me why the small plastic bag was ripped apart. It never occurred to me that the Styrofoam was in pieces at the bottom of the box. It never occurred to me that some of the rods were not in their respective plastic sheaths. I didn't see those things because of my excitement. And when it finally did occur to me that I was the second person to drag this creature home only to find one piece missing, I was pissed off at myself for being so blind and stupid.

The first thing we did Monday was return it. I told the girl at the return desk about the missing piece and that whoever bought it first also returned it probably without saying a word about anything other than it wasn't the right color or it didn't work out the way they thought it would.

The moral of this story is: never take anything from the front...take from the back. I always take from the back. When my husband saw me taking the first one right in the front he said he wanted to ask me why I didn't take from the back like I always do. I wish he had said something. It would have saved us another trip to the store.

Needless to say, we checked the contents of the box before buying it. Now I can go back to being happy again. Sometimes it doesn't take much to do that.