In case you haven’t read the first part of this story, I’ll start with the same disclaimer: this is not a joke. This actually happened to me.
If you haven’t, go read that first post. It’s important for context and I’m 100% sure that you will laugh at my misery. It’s ok. I would if I was you.
So at the point I paused the story, my fiancé had just gotten off the phone with the owner of the store where I bought my wedding stress. My fully paid for wedding dress. That was being detained at wherever, because this woman who owned the store would keep giving excuse after excuse not to deliver me the dress.
The call ended with the arrangement that we would be picking up the dress at this lady’s house, because according to her, corona vírus wouldn’t allow her to open the store. Which was a lie because not only were stores still allowed to be open (official quarantine only started on March 22nd, and this was March 18th) but her store was not normally open to the public anyways! You had to make an appointment and she would only meet with one person at a time.
Plus, I would not even go inside the store, if she would prefer that. We could even do a slow drive by with the car trunk open and she could throw the dress into it – no contact needed at all.
Of course I had zero faith in this. She obviously didn’t give us her home address – apparently she said she would text me the address the next day. Pfff. That’s not gonna happen. If this woman was not answering my calls, and only answered my fiancé’s because she didn’t know the number (that cat was out of the bag now), there was no way this “meet me at home” thing was true. I’m starting to wonder what the hell they did with my dress for them not to give it back.
I mean, I did have the first fitting. With a witness. So it was all real and the dress did exist. Why wouldn’t she give it to me?
I started to review my options.
There was a wire transfer. I had proof I paid for the dress. We could sue. But I don’t like Sue. Sue doesn’t give me my dress back. Sue can’t change the fact that I already chose my dream dress and didn’t want to go through the whole process again. Sue was there, but she was virtually powerless.
I called for backup. That dreaded woman might know my and my fiancé’s number, but she doesn’t know my mother’s. Or any of the bridesmaids’. Or groom’s men. Or my hairdresser’s (it would have come to that). And she had no choice but to pick up the phone because it was the number you had to call to make an appointment for her store. So either she picked up the phone or had to close the business altogether.
That Wednesday, state of emergency was declared in Portugal.
What a sh*tty f*cking day.
We went through our third wine bottle of the week, ate the unhealthiest bread and cheese concoction you can order in, and watched trash TV all night. You know, the Vicodin for the soul.
Thursday came and a tiny, tiny miracle happened. She texted me first. No call from me, or from the fiancé. She actually texted me first. Cancelling the plans to go and pick up the dress at her house, of course, but telling me to pick up the dress at the store next Saturday morning. I know this seems like she’s just stringing me along, but that is not really this type of people’s MO – they would rather have you forget about them than keeping you engaged (see what I did there?), so the fact that she texted me without being prompted gave me hope that this one text might actually be true.
Oh and if you’ve caught on the fact that all of a sudden the corona virus was no longer stopping her from opening the store, I’ll gently remind you that this woman had previously changed a factory from Israel to France and made a wedding dress teleport itself to some Fedex guy’s truck (seriously, you need to read the first post for context).
Coherence, logic, and the laws of physics are not this woman’s strong suit.
Friday comes. I ask Fiancé to call again to confirm the new arrangement of going to the store Saturday morning. The lady’s husband now picks up. He confirms what was said, and explains that she can’t come to the phone, and he’ll be the one at the store to deliver the dress, because her blood pressure is too high and she has a big headache. He should see the pain in my ass.
I had actually commented with my fiancé that she might figuratively kill off someone in her family (or literally, what do I know) just to have one more excuse to delay the dress delivery. It would not be the first time I saw someone do that. She was getting close.
Like my mother predicted, if she did happen to release the dress to me, she would not do it in person. She would send a minion, so as not to confront me. Major criminals usually have someone do their dirty work for them.
Saturday morning comes, the release date. The ransom had already been paid a month before, so this should be a clean, quick exchange. The agreed time was 11 a.m. We get there 10:45 a.m. and guess what?? The store lights are on. Nobody’s inside (it’s a small place and you can see everything from the outside) but there is a big white lump on a chair that wasn’t there before.
I was never more excited to see a lump in my life. Faith fully restored. Even if no one showed up, I could still break the store window and rescue my lump – which did turn out to be my wedding dress in a white garment bag. I un-clenched muscles I didn’t even know I had and happiness started to creep in.
11 a.m. We anxiously watch every car that passes by in hopes it’s the husband.
11:15 a.m. We look like hawks. It’s starting to look ridiculous.
11:20 a.m. Fiancé calls. The lady’s husband picks up. “Yeah, ok, I’ll leave the house now”. He sounded bored and bothered, said fiancé. So even though we had a time scheduled, he was still at home, chilling. Not giving a f*ck. We had to call to make him get off his ass, apparently.
I never wished someone diarrhoea so strongly in my life.
11:40 a.m. The dude arrives. Little b*tch. I walk right behind him, go to my lump, open the bag and check everything is there. The dress was exactly how I left it, with the pins in the same place the seamstress put them when I had it on in the first fitting. What I’m guessing happened is that the seamstress actually had it and went by the store in the morning to leave it there. As I was closing the garment bag and getting ready to leave, the dude says “My wife says if you need anything else just contact her”.
I say nothing. But if mind had any power over reality, he would still be by the toilet to this day.
This was March 21st, and the dress was safe and sound in my house, finally. I still have to find a seamstress and pay for the adjustments – that were supposed to be included in the price of the dress, but there is no way I’m going back to that store.
Took me three months to be able to write about this. Turns out we did have to postpone our wedding until next year, so May 2021 it is. I just want to forget March of this year. Just one bad luck streak after another. Things are better, happier now. My post graduate program is going well, the new job and new team are great. And I’m finally more available (mentally and time-wise) to post regularly again.
…
…
Still wish he had the runs though.
