Thought I'd try to save myself a trip to the mall, to pick up an Xmas gift for DMom to give my husband. She was talking about going out to shop herself today, at age 88, with my aunt who is not much younger. I told her in no way, shape or form she ought to try that, and that I'd do the shopping.

I went on Penney's website early this morning, and from the Christmas Delivery Schedule they had posted, it looked like if I ordered this morning and used Express Delivery, the order would arrive before Christmas. I spent quite a bit of time finding a robe and pajama top and bottom that would match and were in stock, found a coupon code to help defray the cost of express shipping, and went to check out. First, I had to change my email address since it had changed since my last order there. After I did that, it no longer recognized EITHER email address. So I tried checking out the non-registered way, where you have to enter your address, credit card numbers and so forth.

I got to where I could check out, and tried to choose Express Shipping, but it wouldn't let me. A popup kept coming up saying what the deadline was, which obviously had not passed yet. But it just wouldn't take. I finally found a number to call about website problems. I tried to describe the screen and the drop down menu that wouldn't work, and the woman didn't even seem to believe there was a drop down menu. She tried to tell me it you chose the Express method of checkout, it would automatically be shipped the fast way. It just isn't so--Express Checkout just automatically puts in your preferred shipping address and credit card number.

Anyway, she started to just take my item numbers and put the order in on her end. She came up with an arrival date of December 28, even when she put in Express Shipping. Then she put me on hold for quite a while, and finally came back to say that it wasn't working because UPS doesn't deliver on Saturdays in my area.

Geez, if they would have put a disclaimer or a chart somewhere on their page about delivery schedules, where you could see it wouldn't work in your zipcode, it would have saved me an hour and a half. It wouldn't be that hard--Barnes and Noble does a great job telling you whether their next day shipping will work for you or not.

So, it's out to the mall, I guess, where it will now be even harder to find a parking spot than it would have been an hour or two ago...