The Funny Briefcase Story

I was talking the other day about The Mister and

the poor man's bad luck, which is an amusing joke

in our family.  A 10 minute repair turns into an all day

project.  He can pick the shortest check out line but

it will move the slowest, and on it goes.

We tease him that Murphy of Murphy's Law is

a twin brother that follows him everywhere!

One of the funniest stories came recently when he needed a new

brief case. He works for a foundation that supports our two

 local hospitals and he has an office at both places.

 He needed a bag that could hold his laptop along with several

large binders that he uses daily as he goes between offices.

His current brief case was looking tired, and it wasn't

wide enough to hold his new laptop. (yes the old one died! ha.)

He shopped online and found one on etsy.  It was hand crafted

and really beautiful.  It had a shoulder strap like he wanted and

it was the right size.  The creator was in Montana and even though

it was a new shop, he had two glowing reviews.

So he placed the order!

In a couple of weeks, a package came, delivered by DHL.

I had to sign for it, and I thought it was strange that it was

brought to our house by an international delivery company.

The package was smashed and shaped weirdly, but I thought

I'd let him do the honors of opening it himself.

Later that evening, the package was opened.

It revealed a very cheaply made, funny smelling,

oddly colored bag.  The quality was terrible!

The stitching was crooked, there were pencil marks

for the cutting of the pattern that hadn't been cleaned off,

and the cutting of the pieces that were sewn together looked

like a little kid did it with those preschool Crayola scissors!

And it was supposed to be monogrammed with his full name

 on the front flap but it wasn't there.

The Mister, who never likes to admit something is wrong

and really hates to return things, said he could clean off

the pattern marks and give it a good polishing with some

leather cleaner.  I, on the other hand, said that was out of

 the question and took photos of the worst parts and sent

them to the shop owner to demand a refund.  

While taking photos, I found the monogram!

It was on the shoulder strap.  His name was misspelled! lol!

Not only was it misspelled, but it was crooked, with a few

of the letters done so poorly, you couldn't read them. Oh my!

By then, we were laughing hysterically!

Oh Murphy!

Well the shop owner responded with a refund

and admitted that he was swamped with orders and 

had outsourced to another country on the other side 

of the world.  The leather wasn't calf skin, but goat.

That explained a lot!  The bag did look like it rode in the

 baggage compartment of a plane with an elephant sitting on

 it.  And the smell was unlike anything we'd ever encountered!

We were telling the story to Taylor and Lauren later that week

over dinner.  Taylor wanted to see the sorry bag and we had a

good laugh about it.  He said it looked like a bag a college student

would use....a distressed hipster bag.  He asked if he could have it

and we didn't object but said he might want to air it out

before using it to get rid of that goat smell.

And Taylor said, 'Dad, you're the president of a foundation!  You're

in your 50's!  You need something with more class than this!

You need to look the part!"  And The Mister told us about a bag

he really liked but it was expensive and he wasn't sure about

spending the money.  We all checked out the bag online. 
It was a Levenger bag.  Handmade in England.  Lovely! 

We insisted that he had to have it!   
 Besides, Father's Day was just around the corner! :)

Taylor took the old bag home and put it in their laundry room

to air out.  I texted him a few days later and asked about it.

His response...."The whole laundry room smells like goat!"  lol!

Later that week I ordered the new bag.

I got a good discount using retailmenot.com

and the thing has a life time guarantee!

And he looks like a business man instead of a college kid!

And since I did the shopping, Murphy didn't show up! ha.

♥