Best Weekend Ever
Posted on June 15, 2008 by Ching under Life, Poker.
Last weekend is the best weekend we’ve had ever. Well, with the exception of the Wal-Mart collections fiasco at Sam’s Club and, of course, this weekend is Brian’s birthday weekend so we are having a fantastic weekend thus far also. So what made the weekend so great?
Friday morning, June 6, I got an email from my Google news alert (Google sends me an email every time “Cherrie Brubaker” appears in the news or anywhere online) about this article in the Living section of Wichita Eagle online. The article was not a surprise because Denise Neil had contacted me that Tuesday about it and asked me to send a photo. I just didn’t know when it would run. I told Brian that I was mildly disappointed that she didn’t publish our photo after I had scrounged Flickr for a good one of the two of us.
Later that day Brian called me and told me that Cris (one of his coworkers) just asked for his autograph because he saw our photo in the paper. I didn’t realize that the article would appear in print. I thought that it was an online-only thing. Denise Neil did print our photo in the print version of the article which appeared in Go, 17D (thanks to Ken for the page number). We don’t get the paper so I had no idea what page the article was on (until Ken’s tweet) or that it even appeared in print (until Brian told me).
A few people at poker had seen and read the article so we got some comments about that. The best part of poker that night, though, was that Brian and I finally achieved our goal of making the final table together — something that we have never ever done in a Blue Collar tournament. It was great! Brian and I didn’t make the big money, but it was still quite an accomplishment. I finished in sixth place and then Brian got knocked out right after I did. I apologize for erroneously reporting seventh and sixth respectively in the newsletter — Jason actually got knocked out first, followed by Brad, myself, and then Brian. The correct ranking is sixth and fifth with Brian being the fifth place finisher. I’m not sure how the rest of the places went because we left feeling pretty good about ourselves right after that. Well, Brian did steam a bit about his pocket aces being busted by queen ten. But what can you do? That’s poker.
I did get pocket aces twice at the final table. The first time it simply held up against Jason’s four five, which allowed me to double up. The second time it quadded. I think that’s the first time I’ve had four aces at the final table and the first time I’ve had four aces in a really long time altogether.
The next day, I woke up at sevenish despite only having had a few hours of sleep from a late night of playing poker. I decided to workout. Usually, I’m beat after muscle pump. I’m so out of shape that it’s going to take me a while to get to the point where I can endure multiple, consecutive workout classes. I gave it a try that day. I stayed for muscle pump and step interval. Well, I couldn’t do the more advanced versions of the interval workouts without killing myself, but I stuck through it and completed the class. This day marked the first day that I’ve been able to complete two consecutive hour-long workout classes since I’ve started working out again. It made me feel good.
The downer happened on Sunday when we went to Sam’s Club to exchange Brian’s new backpack. When you do an exchange or return of any kind, they have to run your driver’s license. Well, the machine spit out this little receipt thing instructing Brian to call Wal-Mart collections because of some bad check that was written. Brian and I were shocked. We don’t even write checks when we buy stuff at Wal-Mart or Sam’s. It’s either debit or credit for us. That was just the craziest thing ever.
I asked the customer service rep if they scan the driver’s licenses or if they just type them into the machine. She said that the original clerk who accepted the check would have typed the number just like she did. I concluded that this was some sort of typo that has led to mistaken identity.
Of course, they don’t know us from Adam so they basically just told us to call the number on the piece of paper because they couldn’t help us until we got that sorted out. From the business perspective, this action makes sense because now they have leverage. They can pressure the customer to pay the bad checks if they want to pursue the return or exchange, and it would work — if they had the right person.
We tried calling the number, but they are closed on Sundays. We went to one of the local Wal-Mart locations to see if we could get the issue resolved in person. No such luck. We have to call the number. What a hassle! We were so mad. I made a comment about hating deadbeats who write bad checks to Wal-Mart particularly those who get mistaken for innocent people like Brian and I. Brian commented that he hated incompetent, untrained clerks who can’t type the right driver’s license even more. I think Brian wins this one. It’s not really the deadbeat’s fault that there is no money to cover the check. That would not have affected us in any way had it not been for the incompetent clerk who typed Brian’s driver’s license number by mistake. It’s the stupid clerk’s fault!
We didn’t let that ruin the rest of our day, though. We had promised to take Grandma and Grandpa out to lunch that day and then visit their friend John at the hospital.
Fast forward to Monday. Brian talked to someone at Wal-Mart collections and found out that the bad check had been written in Alabama by some other person with a completely different name. Ding-ding-ding! This supports my claim that this is some sort of mistaken identity. We don’t live in Alabama and have never even been there. We had to return to a Wal-Mart location for some kind of ID check, though. It was a hassle, but it was fine because we figured they would want to verify this fact. The part that frustrated me most is that when we got there the Wal-Mart customer service people acted so clueless, even though we’d been there the day before for this issue (same customer service clerk, mind you). The supervisor we spoke with (Maricella) the day before wasn’t there and we had to deal with some other guy. I think his name is Ryan. He had this blank look on his face, which was so aggravating. Brian explained the blank look was not a look of lack of understanding but rather a look of apathy because frankly these people just don’t care. They don’t care that one of their incompetent employees in Alabama has inconvenienced some poor shmuck in Kansas.
We finally got through to the guy that he needed to call the same phone number we called and tell them that we are standing right before him and provide them all the information they need so they can erase this stupid flag in the system on Brian’s driver’s license number. Simple, right? Not really. They told us it could take seven to ten days for the flag to be removed in the system. In the meantime, we can’t do any returns or exchanges. Returns are no biggie. We’d pretty much suffer rather than go through the hassle of returning something. The exchange was crazy, though, that’s something that we really needed to do. Brian loved the backpack he got from Sam’s. He just needed one with a working zipper. Ugh.
The Wal-Mart people were completely worthless. They were no help at all. Brian and I were still left to fend for ourselves to get our situation rectified. We went back to Sam’s and after much frustration and stomping, we finally go them to understand that we didn’t want any money back we just wanted to exchange our backpack for the exact same backpack. I don’t know that they completely understood the mistaken identity part even after we explained it several times and urged them to call the phone number themselves to confirm that we aren’t making this up.
I’m sure it will be another week before that flag is removed from the system, if it goes away at all, but at least we achieved what we were trying to accomplish — getting Brian’s backpack exchanged. What a nightmare!
Then again, when so many good things happen, something bad is bound to come up. At least this wasn’t anything too serious.
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