I feel so bad!! So, some women of my acquaintance were discussing how bad their men folk (husbands, fathers, etc) are at gift giving, and I was reflecting at the past couple of Christmases, one of which I got nothing. I'm the one who buys the kids' gifts and I got a couple of things for DH as well, but when Christmas rolled around, I was watching them all open presents and didn't have anything myself to open. My husband hadn't gotten anything for me because he assumed I would buy my own gifts or that we would just do gifts for the kids. So last year, I ordered some Disney cookbooks for myself and wrapped them, and those were the only gifts I had besides several sets of dishtowels which my husband bought because he was tired of me getting upset when he used my good dish towels to mop up spills on the floor and such. I have 2 piles of towels....the nice dish towels in matching sets (drying cloth and hand towel) and the miscellaneous stained and/or ripped clothes for mopping up spills. It's very obvious which is which, and I have told him numerous times to please use the stained and ripped clothes for spills and such, and keep the nice towels for the dishes...I only had a few sets, which I wash often and didn't have enough of. So he bought me like 8 sets of dishtowels so he doesn't have to bother to look at which towel he is grabbing. Anyway, I was wrapping the presents for everyone and noticed there was nothing for me again. So I asked my husband if he had gotten me anything and he said "No. I didn't know what you want." Now, to be fair, I did not give him a list. But he KNOWS I'm a big reader, and I have a list in Drive that he has access to with the 700 books I already HAVE, and I have goodreads, which he has access to with all the books I WANT to read. Pick literally ANY book not on the list of books I own. Any book! He knows I like to go out to eat because cooking gets old. Get me a gift certificate for a restaurant. He knows where I buy clothes....get me a gift certificate for one of those stores. He knows I like to craft. Get me craft supplies, or a gift certificate. It's REALLY not that hard, it just involves thinking about me and my interests. Instead, he told me to order some stuff for myself.
So E said no, don't buy your own gifts, I will take care of it and I'll work it out with dad to pay for them. So she's been getting all these things for me. Yesterday, I get a phone call from a number I don't know. I was at work, so I called back after I was home, and it was the bookstore. Very rude....didn't say hello or tell me the name of the store I was calling, just said "We're very busy. We might get back to you later" and he hung up. I didn't even get to tell him what I was calling about. That's literally how he answered the phone...."We're very busy" with no other greeting. But my caller ID then said it was the bookstore, so I called them back this morning, and the woman says my book is in. I do order books a lot, so it was perfectly plausible, but I couldn't remember ordering anything recently that I hadn't already gotten. So I asked her which book it was, and it IS one I had on my list. E and I have a Christmas tradition of gifting each other a book on Christmas eve to read that night, and we make a list of 4 or 5 to choose from so it's still a surprise which one we get. This book was on the list I gave her. I panicked, thinking I had already ordered it and I forgot and she might get me that for Christmas. Then I thought...wait a minute....she was taking over my gift buying...what if SHE ordered it and that's why I didn't remember. I went through my emails to see if there was a confirmation for this book...nope. I never ordered it. It turns out she DID order it, and she even ordered it with HER name and phone number and email address, but when it came in, they checked the physical address so they don't give it to someone with the same name, but they didn't check her name and phone number. They just used the information they had in the system and called ME. So the surprise is ruined, and if I had been a bit quicker, I would have understood what happened and I wouldn't have asked which book it was. I feel so bad. This book store has a HORRIBLE track record with orders. It goes wrong more often than it goes right.
One time, I ordered a book, but they didn't have it on their main source, they had to order it from a different one, and they were busy, so they wrote it down to order later. Months later, it still hadn't come in, and they had told me it could be a while, but I went to check if there was any news. They had completely forgotten to order it....there was no record of that order. Another time, I ordered a book, it was supposed to be in by a certain date. I never got a call, so I went in to ask about it, and they said "Oh! We have that in stock!" They had gotten it in, but instead of calling me to come pick it up, they had put it on the shelf so anyone could buy it. Another time, they told me a book would be in on Tuesday, I went in on Wednesday because I hadn't gotten a call. It was there, but they had forgotten to call. So now, after today's debacle, I think I'm going to have to stop ordering books from them. They are fine if you just want to go in and browse and buy something off the shelf, but ordering almost always goes wrong, and the owner people are not very customer friendly. I recognized his voice as the one who picked up last night. And his wife came into the store where I work a couple of weeks ago and I was the one who helped her and she told me she worked at the book store....Um...I know....I shop there regularly and I see you there all the time. You don't even recognize your regular customers?? I'd also applied to work there several times when I was looking for a new job. How do they not recognize me by now? Anyway, the other people who work there are usually lovely and friendly. It's just the owners, but they are the only regular book store in town. E works at a store that sells books and DVDs and craft supplies, but most of the books are like cookbooks, travel books, self help, and the novels they have are all in Dutch, translated from English. They don't sell books in English, and you can't order from there. So now it looks like I'll have to go all the way to Arnhem for books now.
But I feel bad I ruined the surprise. She tried to do something nice for me to make sure I had Christmas presents that I didn't know I was getting, and now I know. It's only the one present, and it's totally not my fault...why they didn't check the phone number on the order, I don't know. But if I hadn't asked which book it was, it would still be a surprise. I should have put 2 and 2 together a bit faster.