very sad, but...

I finally wrote back to Spring (my tee-shirt printing company) and told them to cancel my large order of tees and other merch. I had ordered these items back in March, and I'd wanted to get them in time to inspect them, repack them, and send them off to France for Dominique's son Augustin's July 4 wedding, which I'm supposed to attend. When I'd written to Spring about a month ago, I got some mealy-mouthed answer about transitions happening in the company and supply-chain difficulties, and since then, there's been only silence. No movement at all on the gifts I'd ordered.

So today, fed up, I wrote Spring and canceled the entire order, giving them the specific order numbers. I will undoubtedly receive an automated reply first since that's Spring's standard operating procedure; next, I'll get an email from someone claiming to be a human being, and after that, I ought to see a $300-plus reimbursement on my credit card.

I have a ton of extra shirts here at my place, as well as other merch that I can send along to France in early June. The problem is that all of the shirts I have are sized to me, which means they're all 4XL, but no one in my French family is that size—not even Dominique himself, who is fairly large (but not fat). I'll ask Dom if he knows anyone in his small town who can do alterations. Whoop—the auto message has arrived from Spring.