Who would have thought it would be so difficult just to get a nice comforter delivered to a house?

It all started a few months ago when Sandy realized just how nice the comforter was that she got me for Christmas in December. It was on sale at K-Mart, so she bought one for me. We tend to sleep with separate blankets in the same bed now, since we both sleep completely differently–I get too warm and kick off my covers often, and I also roll over constantly throughout the night, while she says tucked-in, covered and toasty all night long, barely moving. As a result of this, Socks always preferred to snuggle up with her instead of me so he rarely gets disturbed when sleeping.

Once I got my big new comforter for Christmas we both realized how soft and warm it was after I started using it, and once the puppies were old enough to sleep outside their pen, they too learned how nice and comfortable it is, and they didn’t care how much I tossed and turned during the night, they just rolled with it and adjusted their sleeping places as needed. This also often resulted me me getting slowly nudged to the edge of the bed, nearly falling out, but I don’t mind them getting a little revenge once in awhile, so I put up with it just as they do.

So Sandy started wondering, out loud, how she could get the same comforter for herself, so they both matched. I took to the internet using the information on the tag of my comforter. I quickly found the exact one she bought from K-Mart. It was on Amazon, but from a different seller. It also costed a bit more, since at K-Mart it was on sale. Since it wasn’t a “Prime” item, it would also take much longer than the one or two days for shipping.

So after a couple weeks our credit card was finally charged and the item was shipped. After another week or so, we were notified that the carrier had returned the item to the seller claiming the package was damaged in shipping, so we were refunded our money.

I went back to the same seller on Amazon and re-ordered the same comforter again, and we waiting some more. After a couple weeks with no change in the status of our order, I contacted the seller (no easy feat to get them to respond, believe me) and asked what the status was on our second order. I provided the second order number, and eventually was told that the order was cancelled. I asked why, explaining that the FIRST order was cancelled when the carrier returned it as damaged, but the SECOND order should have been ok. I received no explanation, just that the order was cancelled.

Back to the drawing board. I went back to the seller’s page on Amazon again and this time I got the “This item is no longer available” and the “We’re not sure when this item will be in stock again” messages, which pretty much mean “Give it up, go find it elsewhere.”

My searches everywhere else on Amazon over the next few weeks turned up nothing remotely similar to the original comforter, so I eventually gave up trying to find one on Amazon. But while I was on the web one day, on my phone, looking at something completely unrelated, I saw an add for comforters at Home Depot. It caught my eye, looking just like mine, or at least very similar, and it was cheap–and even on sale! So I checked into it further and it looked too good to be true. This one was almost exactly the same one as mine, except that it also came with two pillow cases made out of the same material as the comforter. Since the price was so low, it was truly hard to believe, and Sandy had already given up on getting a matching one at that point, figuring we’d never get one delivered, for one reason or another. But I gave it a shot and placed the order, directly through Home Depot’s website.

Our credit card was billed again, and I was notified a week or more later that the package was on the way. When the package didn’t show up a day or two after the expected delivery date, I contacted Home Depot support. They looked into it quickly and told me the package should be delivered that evening (the same evening I contacted them). If it doesn’t arrive, please contact them again and they will open an investigation with UPS to find out what happened. When it didn’t come that evening or the next day, I contacted them again and they soon replied back stating the package was lost and I was refunded my money. Here we go again.

I don’t know what it is with us and comforters–two completely different merchants and we can’t get a nice comforter successfully shipped to our house without something getting totally screwed up! Home Depot’s support apologized and offered us a 10% discount if we wanted to order the same item again. So again, I went back to Home Depot’s website and ordered the same comforter again. I was half expecting it not to be available again, but it still was, and this time the site was offering free shipping. After ordering it again, I sent the order number to Home Depot support so they could apply the 10% discount. They replied back stating that they gave me a 15% discount instead of 10% because the shipping was free. Even better. All seemed ok at that point, and I started playing the waiting game again.

A couple weeks later I got a notification that my shipment would be delayed one week later than expected. Sandy and I were not surprised at this point, as we both now assumed we’d never get another comforter delivered to us from anyone. But after another week, guess what finally arrived. Yup, the comforter.

It turned out to be pretty nice too–even much softer and warmer than the first one and the puppies love it.

Ah, but the saga doesn’t end there. Guess what arrived the next day. The long-lost package that was ordered from Home Depot the second time. You see, apparently the first one that arrived was the original lost package from UPS. The second one that arrived the day after that was the new one we order to replace the lost one. So NOW what do we do? We wouldn’t mind keeping both of them, now that we know how nice they are. My account on their website shows 1 comforter ordered and delivered, the other ordered then returned and refunded.

At this point, we like it so much, we’d rather have an extra on-hand, so we’re keeping it. Maybe we’ll get some credit for advertising… Here’s what we got.