Strolling along

Whoops. March Madness hits and I up and disappear for a few days. We're not dead. We were just preparing for a party and getting fillings at the dentist and showing vacant apartments to perspective renters and watching lots of basketball and staring at the child.

I also made a trip to Milwaukee over the weekend to shop with my sister. It was Jack's first outing to the mall. He was non-plussed by the food court and really wanted a Cinnabon, but my God, the calories in those things. His little baby arteries could not take it. Instead I told him he could have crack when we got home.

I was all proud of myself, tooling around the mall with my Bugaboo stroller. Yes, I am "that" mother. I wanted the Bugaboo. Scratch that, I coveted it. I schemed and plotted from the day I got my positive test for a way to get Josh to allow its presence in our life.

He, being like most sane people, said there was no way we were spending that much money on a stroller. I, being unlike most sane people, really wanted this stroller because it looked cool. And it's all about looking cool with a baby.

So I would mention it in passing every once in a while. OK, more than once in a while. I would mention it every time I saw one. Which in our neighborhood, is every 3.4 seconds when someone walks by with a kid.

Then, with the cervix and all, I dropped it for a while. You know, other things were on my mind and it seemed silly to be asking for a stroller when I could not even walk.

I resumed my whining just after Christmas. I even pulled out the "But I have been so good on bedrest and it's not fair and I have not bought anything for the baby since I am stuck in the house" argument and I do believe there may have been some tears. We even went to a store in the neighborhood and got the demonstration and the whole shebang about how it's really so much better than the Peg Perego.

I somehow wore him down and he said I could get it. But we decided to look on eBay, where we could get one for about $100 less than retail.

I found what seemed to be a good price on a "buy it now" and asked Josh if we could buy it. In my defense, I was a little excited about finding one. In his defense, he was in the middle of painting the hallway and gave it a cursory once-over.

So I bought it and as required, paid for it via Paypal from the seller. Please note, the seller's name is Reanna Chevallard and her user name on eBay is bananapants628. That's bananapants628. She lives in Denver, CO. And she? Is an ASSHAT.

The woman took our money. And then promptly did NOT send our stroller.

Oh she tried to tell us she sent it. Paypal generated a tracking number for us. Which would indicate to one that a package was on its way. Except the tracking info was for a 2 inch by 2 inch package that weighed 2 pounds.

My stroller? Bigger than a breadbox, of that I can assure you.

So Josh opens a dialogue with her. She blocks his emails. He sends mail from his other account. She assures us it has been sent, that she has a "friend" who works at UPS and hooked her up with special shipping.

Riiiiight.

So here's me, freaking out that not only do we not have a stroller with the baby due any day, but now we don't have the money either. And here's Josh, pissed that I did not realize this person only had an eBay account for a month and now we don't have the money either.

Not good times.

So we break down and buy ANOTHER Bugaboo. I am not making this up. I could have bought a car with all this wasted cash. This time, no eBay. I learned my lesson.

An investigation is opened with Paypal. They get us one-third of our money back, but regret to inform us the seller's Paypal account is at zero. If she does not use it again, we're shit out of luck.

We were saddened by this news. Dismayed, saddened and PISSED BEYOND BELIEF. Isn’t Paypal supposed to be your insurance in cases like this?

Eventually, we turned to American Express. They were kind enough, just this last week, to refund our charge and start an investigation into the case.

So Reanna Chevallard -- you stealer of stroller money -- I hope you get put in jail for Internet fraud. It's literally stealing money from a baby in this case. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Me? I have learned a valuable lesson. And in the end, we got a stroller. And Jack loves it. And I love pushing him around town in it. Josh, he still rolls his eyes when I fawn all over it.

Oh, and since I didn't blog on St. Patrick's Day, here's what you would have seen had I actually gotten around to posting.


Jack says, "I'm a wee bit Irish!"