It has been more than 6 months now since I've been sleeping every night on my bed with my legs up in the air. :D :P
Ok so I'm sure many of us had one of those really bad online shopping experiences, right? The shoes came in the wrong size or the dress came in the wrong colour or the vibrator came without the charger etc right? Well, I had the mother lode of all bad experiences.
On November last year, since it was Diwali, there were a lot of offers and discounts everywhere. I somehow decided that it was high time I have my own bed, instead of using the one my landlord had provided me. It was kinda like being independent, you know.
Plus, it would be a whole new experience if I can go up to a girl at a bar and tell her, "Hey sweetie, wanna come back to my place? I have my own bed, you know. Not the landlord's, mine. And maybe one day when you buy your own bed, you can keep it next to mine and you sleep on yours and I'll sleep on mine and we can look at each other as we both fall off to sleep."
I don't know if that pick-up line works or not but my dear friend Jacqueline of Ramhlun assured me that girls find that kinda intimacy hot :)
So coming back to my worst online shopping experience ever. I decided to buy my own bed for the first time. The offer on Flipkart looked really good!
It was around 10K after discount, which was not bad (I ended up learning a lot about the differences between Particle wood, MDF and Plywood bed). I immediately bought a Spring mattress to go with the bed, throwing in another 10K after around 70% discount (I also ended up learning a lot about the difference between Pocket Spring and Bonnell Spring mattresses).
The mattress was delivered within 1 day! It was a Saturday morning and I was at home. But the packaging was so huge that it didn't fit inside my apartment lift, and so I helped the two scrawny Flipkart delivery guys carry it slowly, step by step up the narrow winding staircase to my apartment on the 4th floor. Daymm that was tiring indeed.
The bed didn't arrive during the rest of the weekend though.
And then on Monday, when I was in office, I received a call that my bed was on its way.
So here's the thing you gotta know about me. I live alone. I don't have a girlfriend or a roommate or a pet, it is just me and me all alone at my apartment. I love my privacy, but there are times when I have to pay for my privacy, such as moments like this when I had to rush home from office in the middle of the day to receive the delivery.
I reached home and the delivery guys were there. Yayyy my bed had finally arrived. Surprisingly, the packaging was much smaller than the mattress and we managed to fit it inside my lift. Once delivered, they told me that the installation guys would come soon to construct the bed. Aaargh. And so I went back to office.
The next day, I received a call that the installation guys were there. I rushed back from office again. I greeted their smiling faces and we went up to my apartment. They opened the package. They inspected each part and realized the main part was broken!
After a long discussion with them and phone calls to their superiors including Flipkart helpline, they packed the stuff again and marked it "For Exchange" and left. I went back to office in a sour mood.
Two days later I received a call that the inspection guy was there. He wasn't even there to pick up the bed, he was just there to merely make sure the bed was properly packed and the reason for return was properly filled. I went back to office after he left.
And then a day later, the pick-up guys for the exchange items finally arrived and so I left office again in the middle of an important meeting and they came and picked up the bed packaging and left.
No words from Flipkart during that weekend.
And then the next week, while I was in a Call conference, I got a call from Flipkart telling me that the replacement bed was on its way. My boss said go, get done with it, and so I went home again. Same as earlier, they easily transported the package up to my apartment and left. I went back to office.
Two days later, I got a call from the installation guys again and I went back from office to my apartment. We smiled at each other as if we had been best friends for a long time. "Hope nothing is broken this time," they said with a laugh. I laughed back uneasily. They opened the package and inspected all the pieces carefully, and THANK GOD, none of them were broken. BUT. Fucking fuck. None of the screws and instructions were included!!!
I had a loooong, furious, expletive ridden call with Flipkart helpline. They told me to tell the installation guys to pack it "for exchange" again and I was like, why can't you just fucking send the missing screws and instruction manual and be done with it, but they were like, that's not protocol, the whole thing needed to be replaced, and finally I was like, fuck your protocol, and instead of again putting it "for exchange", I cancelled the entire order because I was in no mood to keep coming back and forth from office. The installation guys really understood my frustration. Flipkart didn't.
But I did have to go from office to home in the middle of the day twice, once for the inspection guy to verify the package and the second time for the pick-up guys to collect the package. The only thing that made me feel good was uninstalling Flipkart app from my phone. I had bought so many items from Flipkart but the way I was treated was downright appalling and it satisfied me to some extent that I would never be using the bloody app again.
Eight freaking times they made me go home from office, all for nothing.
At least my new mattress was awesome. I slept on the floor for a couple of weeks until my anger finally cooled down.
My friend Nghaka told me that he had just purchased a new bed from Quickr and it was cheap and the quality was good. I browsed on Quickr and finally found the exact bed I wanted, one without a storage compartment below (trust me, 90% of the double beds out there are with storage). I prefer a bed without storage because it was easier to clean beneath the bed, and I had no need for the storage space.
The Quickr order was soooo convenient compared to the bloody Flipkart order. They came within one day to deliver, and they themselves constructed the bed right there in my bedroom!
The only downside was that my new mattress was bigger than the bed!!!!
Ah you see, there lies the problem. Apparently, a "Queen Size" bed is NOT a standard size! There are apparently different sizes of Queen Size within its standard size range, or at least that's what I've been told.
Anyway, after all the trouble I went through with Flipkart, I had absolutely no energy to argue with Quickr or ask for a replacement or give my mattress for size adjustment. And so, till today, I sleep with my leg higher than the rest of my body, lolz. At least my leg is having a good blood circulation at night :P
What a bed experience indeed.
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