Mail distress

 

Everyone knows that mail can be a source of distress.

Tax bills, overdue notices, the jury duty summons, there is lots of unwelcome news in that mailbox.

Card collecting has alleviated any delivered angst somewhat for me. Ever since I started this blog, most days I'm thrilled to go to the mailbox. It's usually overflowing with joy and excitement.

Lately, though, I don't know what's going on. I've been ordering quite a bit on ebay the last couple of months. It's been clicking along well and I've added several cool items recently, which I need to show off here.

But just in the last few days, I've hit a rough stretch. I have had to contact three separate sellers this week because of something wrong with the order. Sometimes it was the seller's fault, sometimes it was out of their control, but in every case I wasn't happy after picking up the mail. Mail distress! That's not supposed to happen anymore!

Today was a doozy. I mean, it was really bad. I can't go into detail as I just contacted the seller and anything I say here will make them look bad and they haven't had the chance to fix it yet. But it's a significant goof.

So, right now, I'm quite flustered. Card stuff doesn't ever get me flustered. But I can barely focus at the moment.

I need to balance it out with what I know to be good in the card world.

Bloggers, for instance, know how to ship cards to satisfaction. I think it's because they're collectors, too, collectors who love cards so much that they have to write about them. I've almost never had issues with fellow bloggers mailing me cards. There is no mail distress.

A recent example is Johnny from Cards From The Quarry. He's returned to the blogging game after quite awhile away and he's gotten back into the rhythm with little trouble. The last few weeks he's been offering up trade bait by team and I've snapped up a few cards.

A lot of what Johnny's been offering are parallels, which is great for me because I'll always be sucker for most parallels.

I didn't realize that all of the cards I claimed -- two long-forgotten prospects and a player who took off just before the Dodgers won a World Series -- were blue-themed.

I also claimed a handful of cards that will be part of my own trades, although there's one card I'm tempted to keep.

Now, this is where Johnny demonstrates how bloggers know how to create happiness in the mailbox, not distress.

He added four extras (the Alex Wood at the top included), featuring two new-to-me Kershaws!

That will wipe away the ebay angst!

But, really, this particular ebay screw-up needs to be corrected or even all of the right-thinking card bloggers aren't going to be able to help.

Stay tuned.

(Edit: I returned home from dinner break to see a response from the seller and they plan to fix it. Phew!)