RV Travels With Huggy

I don't have any photos to post today but thought I'd do a quick update. I've gotten started on painting the outside house trim and have found a bit of dry rot that we will have to get fixed. I have been trying to paint on the shady side of the house but that has been a problem on the south side as it is almost never shady there. So, this morning I didn't go to the YMCA for my exercise class. I figure that I am getting more exercise than normal with this project and this way I was able to be out on the south side early in the morning before it got too hot. Now I am waiting for the sun to move around to where the east side is in the shade again.

I do have an extension ladder but it is down in Arlington at my son, M's house. He needs it more than I do but now I do need one for some of the higher places. Pat talked with my ex-neighbors who live only a couple of blocks away and they loaned me theirs which we walked over last night to pick up. So, today when the sun gets around far enough I'll use it to get the peak trim done on that east side. That is the street side of the house and what most people see.

There turned out to be an interesting tale on picking up the paint. We went on Saturday to Parker Paints. They have short hours on Sat, only open from 9 to 1, but got our two gallons ready before closing and I picked them up along with a 1 1/2" brush (I already have a good 3" one) and I bought some of that blue masking tape used by painters. They had a stack of 9 rolls of 1" wide tape with a price sticker of $4.59 on it. When I got home and looked over the invoice I realized that the price was PER ROLL, not for the whole stack. I didn't need that much and the tape cost more than the two gallons of paint.

Pat & I took it back to have the $43.64 (tape plus tax) credited back into my checking account (purchased with a debit card) and I bought just two rolls. The fellow working there wasn't too sure how to credit my account back so called another store for help. He did it, then brought me the slip to sign. I always look them over and noticed that he had hit an extra zero so had credited my account $430.64! I pointed this out to him and he said he would correct it. Then he asked me to just write a check for the two rolls of tape I was buying.

These transactions didn't show up on my banking online until Monday, when I found the $430.64 was still there and he had charged another $43.64, then credited $43.64 back. I got started painting Monday and didn't have the chance to go over to the store but we did make it yesterday, when we talked with the store manager (who seemed glad to see us) and got it corrected. They charged my account the $387.00 difference between the return payment of $430.64 and the $43.64 that should have been put back in. I guess I actually made a little money since that money was there from Sat until Tue but any money over $500 in checking only earns 1/2 of one percent interest so we won't be getting rich over the error.

That mistake gave us more money than we should have had but it could just as easily have been the other way around. I am not sure that all business' would quickly return the money to the customer, so it is important to check these transactions on a regular basis. I like my debit card but there are a lot of ways mistakes can be made with it. So, check your transactions on a regular basis!

Labels: House, Humor