Tinkerbell's Pages

On the (in)convenience of online food shopping...

The boyfriend and I were feeling particularly lazy at the weekend, so we decided to try online grocery shopping. As a 'busy young professional' with a boyfriend who does not enjoy food shopping, it sounded like a good idea to me at the time. We had been thinking about trying it for a while and our local supermarket (which shall remain nameless) was offering a free delivery service for a limited period, so we decided to give it a go. At first it was fun, with me in my pyjamas and he is his boxers, sitting at the computer deciding what we wanted to buy. We chose our items and delivery slot (between 12pm and 2pm on Sunday afternoon) and paid for them. Then we sat and waited for our food. How smug we felt. No more pushing our trolly round the supermarket. No more waiting in long queues. No more carrying our bags up the two flights of steps to our flat.

At precisely 11.58am on Sunday morning the doorbell rang. It was the delivery man with our food. He even gave me a lovely bunch of flowers courtesy of the supermarket to say thanks for our order. Fantastic. Except that he then drove away with about four bags of frozen foood we had ordered in the back of his van. We also discovered that about half of the items I had ordered were out of stock and had been replaced by other items. Five phonecalls later the supermarket finally established that the driver had gone off with half our order and would be returning with the rest later on his round. Sorted. Except that then they rang again to say that there was a problem with processing our payment for the goods and I had more hassle with the debit card. An hour and a half later, the rest of our order finally arrived and order was restored once more.

Somehow, I think it might just be easier to go the supermarket and get the food myself next time : (

On buying from wedding gift lists...

I have just bought a gift for a wedding the boyfriend and I are going to in November. I selected it from an online wedding gift list from a certain department store. I don't much care for buying from wedding gift lists. These are some of the reasons why: (a) You can't actually see what you are getting for your money. Unless of course you can actually be bothered to travel to the particular department store which holds said list, which kind of defeats the object of buying online in the first place. (b) You might end up giving a completely different gift from the one you have chosen. The department store from which I have purchased said gift (which shall remain nameless), has the following message on it's website: "In the event that any of the items purchased are not available, we may select alternative items from this gift list to the equivalent value." I have selected a vase as our gift. Added to the fact that I have also had to pay for gift wrapping and postage, I feel I have spent enough. I do not mind this. However, for the same price, my gift might be substituted (without my knowledge) for ONE very much over-priced pillowcase. What married couple would thank me for the kind gift of one pillowcase?! (c) The bride and groom know exactly how much you've spent on their gift. After all, they made the list in the first place. They wouldn't thank us for the 'Vermont Mosaic or Combed Egyptian Cotton face cloth' (ie. flannel) at the cost of two pounds.

I can see why people like to make a wedding list though. Apparently you get to go round your chosen department store and just zap the barcodes for ANYTHING IN THE WHOLE SHOP! Cool. The boyfriend and I have often discussed the possibility of pretending to get married, just so that people buy us loads of cool stuff. However, there's one thing I hate even more than buying from wedding gift lists. That's when people put a wedding list in your invitation accompanied by a note along the lines of: "Please do not feel obliged to buy us a wedding present, your company on a special day is more important to us." TOTAL CRAP. If I ever get married, people won't even be allowed into the venue until they show me exactly what they've bought and I have approved of their gift. And we sure are owed a lot of good presents by people we've bought them for !!! : )

On being able to shop once more ...

On Saturday afternoon (before the football) big sis and I decided to take the boyfriend out shopping to look for birthday presents for him. (TRANSLATION: we were just making excuses to go shopping, her to buy a new pair of shoes, me to avoid sitting down to write school reports at all costs - as, incidently, I am doing right now). We thought we'd drag boyfriend along to stop him from moping around the flat in the dark on such a gorgeous day. Anyway, after A LOT of looking around, we finally managed to find a pair of trainers which were 'acceptable' to the boyfriend, so I bought them for him. It was hot and sunny. We bought ice-creams which melted before we could eat them properly. We laughed. We had not yet played and lost the football match. All were happy.

Then something scary happened. Whilst sister was in the shop, fussing over getting the right colour, size and style of shoes to go with a recently purchased dress, boyfriend and I sat down. I spotted a pair of ridiculously impractical sparkly silver shoes. It may just have been the light bouncing off their sequined loveliness, but it seemed like they were winking at me. I picked them up. They just HAPPENED to be the correct size. I tried them on. THEY FIT ME PERFECTLY. Then, like the legend of The Red Shoes, where the girl puts on the red shoes and then can't take them off again until she eventually has to have her feet chopped off, I just knew that I was in trouble. I had to buy them. The boyfriend scoffed at me and said, "Good job you're getting them. You never know when you might have a silver sparkly shoe emergency and then you'd have kicked yourself for not buying them." I just don't think he understands that it was no laughing matter. The shoes were CONTROLLING me.

On spending too much money ...

Oh dear, the harsh reality has suddenly hit me. I thought I was being such a good girl today. Got up quite early and spent the morning writing plans for school, which took ages and was incredibly boring. Since it's my half term and technically I'm meant to be 'on holiday', after all that exertion I decided to treat myself to a little trip to the shops this afternoon. It was really supposed to be just an innocent little browse, but an hour or so later I was triumphantly returning home with a new pair of trainers, a new pair of sandals and a new pair of jeans. I thought I could justify this to myself because the jeans were reduced in the sale, as were the trainers and I saved 10% on the shoes by buying them on my storecard.

Hmmm, feeling a bit guilty now because I've just realised that I've got to pay off the rest of the balance on my holiday in two weeks' time, leaving me with hardly any money until the end of June! A whole month until I get paid again! Oh well, once I'm back at school they'll be no more time for shopping and spending all my hard-earned cash. Am going to see The Da Vinci Code with my sister tonight (saving money by doing the 2-for-1 offer on her Orange phone!), so I guess I'll have to skip the popcorn : (

On successfully completing my first mission ...

I have just successfully completed my first mission as a secret shopping agent! I checked the website yesterday on the off-chance that my assistance would be needed (see earlier blog for details) and it turned out that they required a 'spy' in my local shopping centre! I really think I should have some kind of hotline installed so that HQ can ring me directly as soon as such an emergency occurs again. Anyway, once I had booked myself onto the mission, I received another self-destructing email giving me further instructions on how I should conduct myself during my shopping trip and what evidence HQ needed me to supply them with. It said: 'Attached to this email are your briefing notes. Please make sure you read these thoroughly before proceeding.' Very cool. In my 'briefing notes' I was also advised to 'Act like a normal shopper - that way your identity will remain a secret.' So it's official - I now have a secret identity. How fantastic is that?!

Anyway, the mission went as planned. Unfortunately, I wasn't supplied with a proper spy kit with the usual fake nose and glasses, newspaper with eye-holes cut out, magnifying glass, secret bugging device or camera etc. so I had to make do with just my handbag (NB: you are not issued with a gun either, nor allowed to take your own). When I entered the store, the two assistants were standing around chatting and completely ignored me, so I made a mental note of this as their first black mark. Hee hee - I am quite cruel sometimes, but you know, it goes with the territory! I had to take note of various aspects of my 'shopping experience' and fill in a questionnaire for HQ on my arrival home. Am now awaiting my payment for what I feel was a job well done, which I am reliably informed should be with me 'in due course'. I've also got a nice new top to wear! Have got another mission booked for a different branch of the same store later in the week, so let's see if those assistants are any better. Somehow, for me,  I don't think shopping will ever be the same again ...

On becoming a secret shopping agent ...

'WANT TO GET PAID TO SHOP?!' screamed the letters at me as I opened my storecard statement last week. What a foolish question to ask. Who wouldn't want to earn money doing something that comes so naturally to them and that they spend so much time doing anyway? I had already decided that I was the person they were looking for before I read any further. The mysterious invitation continued: 'All you need is internet access and a spare hour or two' - got the internet and am sure I can always make time for more shopping opportunities. Later that day I checked out the website for further instructions. I was technically applying to go shopping and spy on the shop assistants to make sure they're doing their jobs properly. This was all very exciting ...

Firstly I had to enter my personal details and answer few questions to prove that I was a worthy candidate. I tried to type my details into the boxes on the website but with no success - either my wireless keyboard was on the blink (again) or their site was out of order. Or so I thought. Until I realised that their font was defaulted to a very pale yellow which hardly showed up at all on the white background. Ha ha! Nearly fell at the first hurdle! I think this was the first secret shopper test. They'd have to do better than that to get rid of me! A couple of minutes later I received an email stating 'Congratulations your mystery shopping application has been accepted!' Cool.

Once I had been officially accepted by 'the team', I received further details of my possible shopping missions. I obviously can't reveal any more information here because it is TOP SECRET and if I told you, I'd have to kill you. Unfortunately I haven't been required to carry out any missions as yet, but when called upon, I'll be ready and waiting with my purse as my secret weapon. Beware shop assistants everywhere!

PS. THIS MESSAGE WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN 30 SECONDS ...

On growing up ... (part 2)

Again, I find myself pondering this whole 'growing up' thing - in fact it's becoming quite an obsession. At the weekend, I found myself in my local branch of TopShop (well, when I say I 'found myself' there, I did actually consciously walk in of my own free will; I wasn't (a) abducted by aliens and left in TopShop after they had carried out experiments on me or (b) hit by a car and then awoken to find myself in Topshop for no apparent reason - in the style of that extremely odd programme 'Life On Mars' where he wakes up in 1973 - what's that all about?!!! Who could have possibly thought it was a good idea?!!!) No, I just walked in.

Anyway, I headed straight for the sale rail as per usual. I found a jumper which I liked and grabbed it - despite the fact that I've already got an almost identical one at home and it was two sizes too large (is the baggy look in this season?) Now being such a bargain rail, it was a buy-one-get-one-free extravaganza, so I had to find another item to make the most of this opportunity. ANY ITEM. I ended up with a cardigan of the correct size (yay!), but to be honest, I didn't really like it and knew I would never really have an occasion to wear it. But it was a bargain, right?

In the long queue, I looked at the jumper and realised it had a snag in it. On the front. And that it was dirty. And I acknowledged that it was two sizes too big and that the baggy look is NOT in this season. And that I was holding a cardigan that I didn't really like and already knew that I would never wear. So I did a very GROWN UP thing. I hung them both back on the rail and walked out of the shop with my head held high. An important growing up lesson had been learnt.