Category Archives for Spoonie Problems

Bruised

I’ve written extensively about my issues with sleep. I’m an insomniac. I’ve been one for years. That means I’m happy to get sleep whenever and wherever I can. Because of this I’ve developed the terrible habit of spending the night on my sofa where I often (read most nights) fall asleep, while watching TV, writing, surfing the interwebs, reading, using my phone – actually while doing just about anything.

A few nights ago, I dozed off on the sofa, yet again. I’m not sure how long I was asleep. However, while I was asleep, I fell over and landed on a plastic container in which I keep some of the art supplies I use most often. When I woke up, I had a deep indentation in the skin on my shoulder from where it had rested on the square lid of the container while I slept.

I also bruise easily. Because my skin is apparently as soft as a peach, that indent is now a lovely sore dark purple bruise that hurts a lot. I think my bruised shoulder might be a sign that it’s time for me to give going to bed at a reasonable hour greater effort. After all, who knows what I might bruise the next time I fall asleep somewhere other than my bed…

If anyone has advice for the best way to soothe a bruise, please share.

 

Shopping While Housebound: A Joe Fresh Security Concern

I’ve been housebound for four years now. The pain I feel daily – every minute of every day to be exact – makes it difficult for me to go out to do the many things I once took for granted. I remember going for leisurely walks on cool fall days as the leaves on branches overhead cycled through a palette of beautiful autumn colours before gently floating to rest on the ground. I remember walking to my local ice cream store to sate my summer craving for a large cone filled with my favourite flavour(s) then slowly strolling along the sidewalk toward home as I savoured each moment before they melted away.

Shopping was never something I loved to do. However, in recent years, even before my illness, online shopping became my go-to method for buying the things I wanted; and since becoming ill, I rely heavily on this method of shopping to buy everything I need from groceries to cleaning supplies to clothes. For the most part, I’ve been able to rely on one online store to buy casual clothing I need for my now housebound lifestyle and gifts I need to buy for friends and family members or their children. Their clothing hits a price-point that doesn’t hurt my wallet too much, my size is usually available, and my orders usually arrive within a few days.

Sadly, they have fallen from my favour. A few weeks ago, I ordered some items from their summer sale because they were greatly discounted and because I needed to buy some presents. I made my purchases in two separate orders because they had back-to-back promotions offering extra discounts. When the first package arrived the contents smelled. All the clothing smelled as if the company stored them in a space that contained chemicals of some sort and rotting food. I tried to ignore the smell and laid the clothes out hoping that airing them out would eliminate the odor – it did not. When the next package arrived it smelled even fouler than the first. This meant I would have to wash or dry clean these clothes before gifting or wearing them.

As a courtesy – and out of curiosity – I contacted the company to report the issue and to find out if something had changed in their logistics process. Did they change their manufacturer? Were they storing their product in a new storage space before shipping them out to customers? Had any other customer(s) contacted them with the same concerns? The representative who took my call told me the foul smell was a known issue the company was working to resolve. He put me on a brief hold while he looked for a memo that outlined the company’s policy for addressing this issue if/when customers called. He told me the memo instructed that customers were to be refunded the total dollar value of the order placed online; and none of the items in the order had to be returned. That surprised me; and I asked him multiple times to confirm that I would not have to return anything to receive the full refund, which he did.

Well, over the last few days, that policy took an abrupt reversal. On the weekend, the company’s representative left a message telling me that the first order had been fully refunded. Then he stated that the second order, that was a higher dollar value, could not be refunded, “for security reasons”, unless I returned the entire order. Then I would receive a voucher card for a 30% discount on a future order. Huh?! There was no mention of replacing what I had purchased. I called the company back on Sunday to speak with a supervisor who told me she needed to review the memo on the issue and she would get back to me with clarification. She called me back on Monday with more backpedaling about issuing the refund.

 

She reiterated that I had to return the order to get my promised refund. What about the fact that I chose each item for a specific purpose or person and most were already washed, gifted, and/or no longer in stock from their online store? She said they would do their best to replace them. She asked how many pieces of what I ordered were still in my possession. I couldn’t see why that mattered. She then added a new reason I had to return the order: They wanted to test the clothing to figure out the cause of the foul smell. What?! If it was a known issue couldn’t the company do those tests without the clothes from my order? I asked if they had required other customers who reported the smell to return their orders. She wasn’t sure but assumed they probably had, which made no sense because they refunded my first order without any items returned. I asked again, why I was told that the memo related to the issue stated customers didn’t have to return anything to receive the refund. She wasn’t sure. I asked why the previous representative told me the dollar value of my order posed a security concern. She apologized for his poor choice of words and said that was not a valid reason.

After 25 minutes of this back and forth, we reached an impasse. The promise of a full refund from the first representative I spoke with was not going to be honoured for this order, without returning the items I purchased; and I could not continue to be a customer of a company that breaks its own policies and promises. The e-commerce universe is vast and Joe Fresh is not the only company that offers what I need. I chose them because they are a Canadian company and shopping with them was convenient. They are willing to discard me as a customer because they have so many that my business is insignificant. Joe Fresh labelled me a security risk after offering me a refund I didn’t seek out. Yet, the value of the order never raised any cause for concerns when I placed it.

 

Conflicted Canadian On Canada Day

Today marks 150 years in the millennia that the land we call Canada has existed. It is the 150th year; I am told is most significant, because this is the anniversary of when this land became a sovereign nation under the rule of a government formed to manage, then control, the land and all the people and resources that inhabited it since time immemorial. It is the anniversary of the sliver of time marked first by exploration and curiosity of what lay beyond horizons; then scarred by the efforts of all that has been done to erase the pre-historic presence that welcomed the adventurous spirit of strangers to share in all that could be seen before them.

Today is the day that marks the efforts of erasure, which continue even in the choosing of an arbitrary number representing a blink of an eye in the vast time that this land and its people have stood strong. I have benefitted from all the efforts of erasure to live in a country where I have freedoms, privileges, and opportunities not always available to the people indigenous to this land. People whose history cannot be contained by the 150 years of celebrated oppression, violence, and ignorance of what existed before and continues to thrive even under endless attempts to snuff it out. I benefit from the stereotypes that paint the Indigenous Peoples of this land as undeserving and incapable children requiring constant surveillance and micromanagement as the boundless wisdom they hold is ignored and this land faces the same plight to which we have sentenced them.

While I and others are free to live life, wherever and however we choose within this young nation, the Indigenous Peoples of this land to whom the number 150 marks only a brief moment in their history, remain relegated to pockets of land reserved for their kind. Where their status as non-relevant bodies in the vast time and geography of this land is perpetuated by restrictive rule of laws. When that status was deemed insufficient to contain the internal savages of nations within this celebrated nation, it was paired with re-education to break the spirits we now know are strong and eternally bonded to the land.

How can I celebrate today? How can I celebrate only this selected 150 years of the history of this land? How can I celebrate a country that describes itself as multicultural and calls itself a mosaic, when its Indigenous Peoples and many of the peoples that came after them are not treated as equal or worthy as those who have arbitrarily plucked this number from the timeline?

 

Canadian Native Flag designed by Kwakwaka’wakw artist Curtis Wilson