Soon after buying the house, I picked out the ceiling fan I wanted for the living room. I knew I wanted brass accents to tie into the rest of the room and white blades so they would blend into the ceiling for a subtle overall effect. I also wanted something unusual and modern to keep the room from skewing too retro. There weren’t too many options that fit those parameters, so the actual decision was easy. Finding one in stock was not easy. In mid-April, I found a questionable website that said it would ship in one to three business days. Not only was it available, but it was on sale. A double win!
Three business days passed and there was still no shipping notification. I clicked on the link in my order confirmation email and saw that the estimated shipped date was now mid-June. Boo! I decided to wait since no one else had it in stock.
Weeks passed. I kept hoping I’d receive an email letting me know it had shipped early, but no. Around the first of June, I decided to look at my order again. What?!? The estimated shipping date was now mid-September.
Mid-September? The daily temperatures were already in the eighties and getting hotter each day. I had temporarily installed the vintage-looking two-bladed fan seen in some of the earlier posts, but it doesn’t move enough air to really cool a room of that size. Something had to be done.
I started a daily diet of ceiling fan searches to find the fan in stock. A couple of weeks later I got a hit. In order to avoid the prior situation, I called the website’s customer service number and got them to confirm that they physically had the fan in their warehouse. Once they did, I placed the order.
My spidey sense cried out, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!!!”
Another couple of days passed without an update, so I contacted them again. The second customer service agent said, “I don’t know who you talked to, but that item isn’t in stock and won’t be until August. Do you want to continue to wait?”
NO!
Time was running out. Richard and Janie were due to visit soon and afterward Amos and Haley. I resumed my daily searches and crossed my fingers, but then everything was placed on hold. Chelsea got Covid which meant no visitors for a couple of weeks. Some of the time pressure was off, but I still hoped to find the fan just so we could be comfortable once she came out of quarantine.
Finally! A reputable website showed they had the fan in stock…at full price, of course. Fine. Fine. Fine. We needed a decent fan and I didn’t want to go all summer without one. By now the daily temperatures were in the mid-nineties to the low hundreds.
I placed the order, Chelsea came out of quarantine, and I tested positive for Covid two days later. At least the fan would be waiting for me once I finished my quarantine.
Thankfully, it was. Although I felt weak and easily winded, I was able to get it installed. It was done and so was I.