Tales of a Toilet

Since Number One broke our toilet, we have been using the one in the bunk house, which is empty right now. Mostly H-Bomb pees in the yard or in the road (we do live in the country, it’s acceptable to do so) but for, shall we say, big jobs, we all have to walk next door. It’s not a huge deal, but it is an inconvenience.

I ordered a toilet from amazon.com, despite the only review it received stating something to the effect of: “Received toilet in pieces. Twice.” I crossed my fingers and ordered it anyway. Then, if you remember, amazon shipped it FedEx. I began to lose all hope.

A couple days later, while I was in town, the FedEx Express guy showed up at the ranch. He tipped the box back and forth for Wifey, so she could hear that the porcelain sounded like so much gravel at the bottom of the box. Wifey refused delivery, and FedEx guy told her if I placed another order, he would be back on Friday.

Wifey texted me this information, and when I returned to the ranch Wednesday night, I placed another order with amazon. No, we still don’t have internet service in town. Backwards, I know.

In the meantime, I saw FedEx guy in town on Thursday. He asked if we had ordered a replacement, and said “see you tomorrow then.”

On Friday in town, I managed to get an internet signal for about two seconds, long enough for me to receive an email from CG’s bookkeeper, who said FedEx guy was trying to call me about the toilet.

I called him and told him where to meet me at the town house. He showed me the box full of toilet shards. “Do you want to refuse delivery again?” he asked.

“Uhhh. Yes,” I replied.

“So let me show you what I did,” FedEx guy said. (Keep in mind this is FedEx Express, a totally separate company from FedEx Ground. Just ignore the advertising and trust me on this). He walked around to the side of his vehicle and opened the door. “I knew you were in a bind down there, so when I went through town [60 miles away from the ranch]…I bought you guys a toilet.”

He went on to say that we didn’t have to take it if we didn’t want it, it didn’t seem to have some of the features the one we had ordered did, but if we wanted it, we could buy it from him. If not, he could return it to the plumbing supply store the following day.

I couldn’t believe it. He totally went out of his way to try to help us out. However, with our upcoming trip to The Big City, we had anticipated buying a toilet of our own. I thanked him profusely for trying to help, but told him we were going to pick one up ourselves.

I still can’t quite believe it. If only someone, anyone at all from stupid FedEx Ground would read this blog and take note. They still claim they can’t even “find” our 6,000 acre ranch…

Amazon would not send out a third toilet, just gave us a refund. We put a toilet on our list for the Big City.