664th Friday Blog Roundup

You get to hear my annoyance because the store in this story requires you to create an account in order to leave them a message online.  And I’m not creating an account.

So.

I received an email from a bookstore telling me that best selling hardcovers were 30% off.  Click “see all” to see the list of books.  I think I will.

So I clicked “see all” and saw that — WHAT? — John Green’s new book was on the list and was 30% off.*

Awesome.  I’ll just run over to the bookstore and buy John Green’s new book.

So I go into the bookstore and pick up the book.  I take it to the counter to pay.  The cashier charges me the full amount.  No, I tell her, look at this email on this handy little smartphone I have in my pocket.  This is YOUR email stating that the book is 30% off.  She could see it, but she wouldn’t honour it because it was not coming up that way in her machine.

So I left the store without the new John Green book because there are other bookstores in town and while the errand was now a waste of my time and energy, there was the principle of the situation.  I’m not going to reward a store for falsely advertising a product.

I looked on my phone and saw a nearby store was selling it at 20% off the cover price.  I walked over to said store and — lo and behold — it was there at 20% off, just as they stated.  So I bought the book.  Errand redeemed.

What is the point of all of this?  That John Green has a new book out.  And if stores are going to advertise, they need to honour their advertisements.  And that it’s easier to be cranky about false advertising than everything truly awful happening in the world right now.

* Yes, I just took screenshots of the email and the website because I’m that cranky right now.  I am right.  They are wrong.

*******

It’s Friday the 13th.  I have this compulsive need to type that every time the Roundup falls on the 13th.

*******

Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Strengthening the Ghosts” (My Path to Mommyhood)
• “What Adds Dimension to My Life” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “How Do You Say ‘Thank You’ to Someone You Never Met?” (Inconceivable!)
• “Roadtrip: Ottawa” (The Road Less Travelled)
• “#World Childless Week Day 4 Words that Hurt” (Infertilityhonesty)
• “The Consequence of Intimacy” (Stirrup Queens) — Thank you, Katherinea12!
• “The Snake Bite of Death” (Stirrup Queens)
• “What Will They Think of Me?” (Stirrup Queens)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Searching for Our Silver Lining has a post about the “I’ll nevers” we make when we are in crisis.  As she admits: “I made a lot of statements and promises about how life would be one day when I was no longer in the trenches.”  She recounts a particularly trying day and says, “A big part of it was the guilt I faced as I could literally see the 2012 Cristy, with all the ‘I’ll nevers’ that I swore up and down not to do staring me in the face.”  This post.  That’s all I’ll say: this post.  Read it.

My Path to Mommyhood has a post about the often-used phrase “as a mother.”  But it’s not what you think.  It’s about the one time… maybe ever?… a person has caught themselves and corrected themselves in the moment, realizing their feelings maybe came from something larger than this one role.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled has a post about buying diapers for her SIL’s niece.  What I thought was most interesting was the different feelings she and her husband experienced in the moment.  You’ll have to click over and read to the end to discover their reactions.

The roundup to the Roundup: Sharing my annoyance.  It’s Friday the 13th.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between October 6th and 13th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.