Justin's Christmas light OCD

This is a post from Justin. It is very long, and is really a vent session. Hope you enjoy, or ignore however you see fit!!

This year it was time for new lights. We have had icicle lights for years and they have just become a mess. It was time to try something new.

I found these really cool lights at Home Depot, but they were not affordable and they were out of stock. I was disappointed. I looked at Home Depot, Walmart, Target, Lowes, Kmart, Shopko, Fred Meyer and Costco. I could only find these lights at Home Depot and Lowes. Luckily, Lowes had them on sale for fifty percent off, but stores were out of stock locally.

I went home and spent hours trying to find these lights online. I checked Ebay, Craigslist, and Googled them. Everywhere was either sold out, or way too much money.

With the help of the manager at Lowes in Nampa, I was able to find some at a Lowes in St. George Ut. I called Lowe in St. George and they had four boxes...exactly what I needed. I asked them to ship them to me which they were more than willing to do. The seasonal department guy got my number and called me back with a final price. Cool. I was excited. They had my lights and they were going to UPS on Thursday and should be to Middleton on Tuesday.

Friday and Saturday I was just waiting for those lights. All I could think was...you should have got a tracking number. Who doesn't get a tracking number? Oh, well, they will be here Tuesday. Hopefully they come early enough to get them up before piano lessons on Tuesday.

Tuesday came and I saw the UPS man drive past my house. This is typical UPS route as they will go into the subdivision and hit my house on the way out. A few minutes later the brown truck went by my house again without stopping. I was wondering what could have gone wrong, so I called Lowes in St. George.

Luckily, the guy I had worked with on Thursday was again working on Tuesday. He said he had made a minor mistake. He lost my address because he shredded it with my debit card info. He still had the lights. They were boxed and ready for me. I about lost it!! While I was glad that he shredded my debit card information, I was really upset because I was already late getting lights up this year. I asked him if they could over night them to me, since they made the mistake of losing my address.

After being transferred between the guy in Seasonal, Customer Service, and supposedly Shipping and Receiving, I finally got the store manager. He said he would over night them to me and call me when he had dropped them off at UPS.

I waited impatiently for that phone call. Thirty minutes went by and I was hoping he would call soon. An hour went by and I was getting nervous. After two hours, I had to give piano lessons so I called back right before piano started. The manager was in a meeting, but I could call back in an hour. After an hour of piano, I called back and he was still in his meeting. I kindly asked the lady at customer service to please have him call me when the meeting got out.

A little later he called. The lights had been taken to UPS, he just didn't get a chance to call me. I asked him for a tracking number, and he said he didn't have it. The UPS store is in their parking lot so he had one of his employees run and get me the tracking number.

I jumped on the internet to ensure my package was on it's way. UPS said the tracking number was invalid. WHAT??? This couldn't be. I called the manager back and verified I had the right number.

After an hour or so, the tracking information finally pulled up. The package had left St. George at 6:30pm!! Yeah it was on it's way.

Finally, the awaited lights arrived today, and I was able to put them up. I am not sure that these videos due them justice, and I am very glad I have these lights. I have however, asked Jamie to please remind me of this experience the next time I get a crazy idea for something like this again.

The lights are really cool. They will change up to 7 different colors, and run their own 7 minute light show. The are energy efficient and are really fun to watch. I am truly obsessed.