About a month ago, we and our neighbor Bobert Roberts sent a stupid bag of crap to Dollars4Gold in Quebec to see if they would pay out. It contained, among other things, gold chocolate coins, Golden Grahams, and a Goldmember DVD. Worth a shot, right? Sure.
So we waited. But not a peep from Dollars4Gold about our loot. We sent some polite emails to them, asking for an update, and cracks began to show in their professional facade. During our correspondence they referred to your pal and mine as Bobert, Bob, and “Borert” (maybe it’s French – Boh-rair). It might be a really dumb name, but if you’re going to screw up a customer’s name, shouldn’t you pick one way to screw it up?
Every time we asked, Dollars4Gold said they still hadn’t yet received the package. We were beginning to lose faith. Especially Bobert. He’s a religious guy and, when I went over to check on him, he’d taken down his framed picture of Kirk Cameron. Uh oh!
Finally, they had some news:
Where did it go? Did our package disappear into some kind of French-Canadian black hole? Or was Dollars4Gold bluffing so they could keep my hockey cards without paying out?
Further investigation led to this:
Our package had been given a tracking number that doesn’t track. So not only had it probably fallen behind a shelf somewhere, but they couldn’t even use their system to find out which shelf it had fallen behind.
This was going from bad to worse. Bobert slipped into a depression where he ate nothing but Crispers for four days. But we decided to contact Canada Post in a last-gasp attempt to find our gold. I called their 1-800 number on Bobert’s behalf – he’s bashful on the phone… adorable! – and talked to a very nice representative who filed a trace on the package. A day later, I got a call from another Canada Post employee who confirmed that, yeah, our package could and would not be located. I felt our dream of something-for-nothing slip away.
Then she asked for the value of its contents so she could pay us for them.
That’s right! Because the package was insured by Canada Post, they were on the hook for what was inside, whether it was valuable in a realistic sense of the word or not. I gave her a more reasonable estimate than our original $192.25 figure – Goldmember may not be The Hurt Locker, but that dog definitely retailed for at least fifteen bones – and she said to stay tuned. I was still skeptical. Was this just going to be another cash money cock tease?
Finally, a week later, this turned up at our door:
There is justice in the world!
I was happy, but Bobert was overjoyed. He thanked God. He thanked Jesus. He thanked both Davey and Goliath! $23.00 may not have been the money monsoon we’d expected, but for a bunch of stuff we dug out from under the bed, it’s a mail order miracle.
I’m taking two important lessons away from our little experiment. Firstly, despite their high production values, late night infomercials should not be taken at face value. This is the last time I’ll be lured in by an intoxicating accent at 1 AM and end up with something ultimately disappointing. The first time was when I watched Craig Ferguson.
And second: you do not necessarily have to exist for the Canadian government to cut you a fat cheque. I love this country.
God bless this mess, and hoot-a-toot!
First!
FIRSTIES ARE PUNISHABLE BY DEATH