Okay, on Easter Sunday, I promised to share a fun story with you about ‘defying the natural prognosis’ of life’s circumstances.  I’m sort of a squeeky-wheel-never-say-die-call-and-talk-to-the-manager gal - as in ‘rules were made to be broken’; not as in ’sinning to get my way’, compromising the Truth to gain or taking old stuff back to trick the establishment.  No, no, no.  But I am a firm believer in genuinely appealing when you feel that, in actual fact, while holding tightly to your integrity, you have a case.  Perhaps that’s why I’ve raised 5 ‘lawyers’.  (But then, as I see it, most all kids are lawyers….or at least, anarchists!)

Back to my story.  We relocated in late summer of 07.  Along with a few minor cosmetic changes to the older home we had purchased, we bought a few new items,  and one in particular promised in big fat letters, a $200.00 rebate upon professional installation.  Well, we scrambled to hire the installer within the time frame allotted, kept the receipts, documents, etc. and prepared to fill out all the paperwork and claim our ‘prize’!

OOOps.  Fine print. 

  Yuck.  I remember now how much I hate fine print.  It can really dull the luster of the promise.  Point 2 in particular.  “You must cut out and include the original label from the carton, which includes the UPC code, model number and serial number; or YOUR CLAIM CANNOT BE PROCESSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   YOUR CLAIM CANNOT BE PROCESSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!…………..YOUR CLAIM CANNOT BE PROCESSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We threw away the box the night of our purchase.  Complete with the UPC code.  Drats. Daddy doesn’t make it a habit to keep clutter around. He’s pretty obsessed about unhelpful stuff being disposed of as quickly as is humanly possible.  (pray for me, I am the creative type and we like our stuff!)

I cry foul!  Not only did we hire a professional installer, we tipped him $50.00 over his fee of $150.00 since we were planning to get the rebate anyway and why not bless the guy?!?!?!  My mind was racing.  I guess it’s too late to UN-bless the guy, huh?  I wouldn’t really do that, I’m just flipping out for the the moment.

I stewed.  I pondered.  I plotted.  Hmm.  I filed the paperwork and decided not to do anything at the moment…….from time to time I’d pull out the stack again, consider a scheme that was brewing in my head and then, promptly, re-file the paperwork. 

1 day before the deadline to have the entry mailed in.  THE MOMENT OF TRUTH.  OK, what do I have to lose?  I filled out everything  in detail.  I included the installer receipt, the business card of the guy who sold us the item, the receipt and, my Ace - I took a digital photo of the installed item in my house, downloaded and printed it off and wrote a note of appeal to the ‘authorities’.  I begged that they reconsider Point 2 based on the fact that we are people of integrity, who indeed have purchased the item, had it installed(see photo!), tipped the guy generously and actually were strongly encouraged to buy the particular item due to the promised rebate.

THE $200.00 CHECK ARRIVED HERE ON GOOD FRIDAY.  Pretty cool, huh? As in the words of Sir Winston Churchill, “Never, never, never, never, give in.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 10:19 pm and is filed under Mom's Home: domesticity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.