I live in a tall building, and with lots of floors comes lots of stairs. Granted, I don’t use the stairs for regular trips to the ground floor. Instead, they’re strictly for short hops or exercise purposes. During a recent trip through the stairwell, a rather mundane visual element caught my attention. While some of […]

While trying to use up a gift card a few weeks ago, I purchased a small, bunny-shaped piece of chocolate that was on display near the checkout area. Then, this past weekend, I decided to open it. Inside the package, I found what appeared to be a solid piece of dark chocolate, with no obvious […]

Lately, it seems like more and more services that you’d expect to be unlimited — such as home Internet service and mobile data plans — are being sold with a cap on monthly usage. Regardless of whether capped plans will work out in the long run, this trend raises an important question for potential customers: […]

After dialing in to a vendor’s tech support line a few days ago, I was greeted with the usual set of options. Press 1 for sales, press 2 for billing, and so on. However, the way they handled the tech support option left me puzzled. The tech support choice started out with “For technical support […]

While electronic communication is certainly my preference, I sometimes run into a situation where a printed document has to be sent by mail. And whenever that happens, it seems like I go on a wild goose chase to locate an envelope that’s big enough for the contents. Why is this task so difficult? Most mailing […]

Since one of my existing credit cards was scheduled to expire, it was no surprise that I received a new card to replace the old one. While the arrival of a new card was to be expected, the precise timing of the replacement was a mystery. Would I get it during the last month that […]

Occasionally, I place an order with an online grocery delivery service, mainly to stock up on heavy and bulky items that are difficult to lug home from the store. However, something on the most recent receipt surprised me: the vendor had added a “fuel surcharge”, in addition to their delivery fees. I was rather annoyed […]

A few days ago, I needed to replenish a mundane product that my local CVS has apparently stopped carrying. So, I walked to the next-closest store, in the hopes that they might have a few left. The inventory turned out to be rather lacking, but I found a close substitute item, and then headed to […]