ouch!

[susandennis]

I wore my newest swim suit this morning. I'd worn it once before and it was fine, but this morning, it rubbed me raw. As it rubbed I remembered that I had figured out a new, better way to attach the elastic around the armholes and forgotten to use that new way with this suit. Ouch.

Happily, I know someone who will be glad to fix the problem and it's an easy fix.:). Also this morning, I will make a BIG RED note on my pattern not to forget again.

Otherwise it was a good swim. The Ballard LA Fitness pool has several every single day swimmers between the hours of 5-6:30. I'm the only one at the West Seattle LA Fitness. I will be calling again this afternoon in hopes they have fixed the heater this morning and I can go back. I'm guessing there will be some issue or another and it will be Tuesday at the earliest. There are lots of brunch places in Ballard so it won't be a wasted weekend anyway.

I also started another book while I swam this morning. Tracy Kidder's A Truck Full of Money. And a new book last night - The 500 by Matthew Quirk. If the Kickstarter project I backed comes through, I'll be able to listen to one book while swimming and then pick it up where I left off on my phone at night and vice versa. This will be a little more handy.

I ordered something on Amazon a few weeks ago that I realized after the fact, was from a fake seller. I sent a cancel request immediately but, of course, since it was a fake seller, there was nothing to cancel. I should have done due diligence before I ordered but I was shiny objected into clicking buy without thinking. Now I have to wait until April 14 to file a claim. It's only $50 but, more costly, is the shame of doing something so stupid that is the real cost. And I now have to live with that for two more weeks. Ugh.

And, speaking of ugh. In addition to the $80 a year addition to our license plate fees, the malformed and ill planned transit vote last year is raising our sales tax on Saturday. We now will pay 10.1% sales tax on every fucking single thing (well, except food). Talking about living with bad decisions...

I feel like I am being taxed every way to Sunday this year. And, I'm not too impressed with what those taxes are buying.



Nothing big on tap today. I could use some salad fixings but I can also wait until tomorrow which is what will probably happen.

Comments

[art-decade.livejournal.com]

I've had similar trouble with Amazon sellers, sad to say. I bought sunglasses once from an Amazon-approved seller - when they arrived, they were fake.

[jaywil.livejournal.com]

Is the fake seller a seller who provides no product or a fake product. How did you know it was a fake?

[susandennis]

It was a compilation of things that told me I'd hit a bum. I could be wrong but I'll bet money that the vendor selling the product has no product to sell.

There are/were a bunch of clues.

1. no reviews. This, by itself isn't exactly a flag - I sell stuff on Amazon - I've sold maybe 10 things - no reviews BUT, I do have a personalized statement about me and the stuff I sell. This vendor used the default.

2. all other products being sold by this vendor show as 'no availablity' - the way Amazon selling works is that if you sell a product, it no longer shows in your inventory so this vendor is clearly manipulating the system

3. the next day after I ordered, 4 other vendors - looking EXACTLY like this one showed up with EXACTLY the same product set with all but one product showing 'no availability'

4. my email went unanswered. Amazon will hound you to death if you don't answer a customer email promptly.

5. but what really nailed it was that I got a notice it has been shipped from USPS and the tracking number is 100% bogus.

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

... and I thought 8.25% sales tax in Texas was bad. Property taxes in Texas are high, too. The states are going to get their revenue one way or the other. Like Washington, Texas doesn't have the state income tax which is probably the main reason for the sales tax hike. There is no sales tax on clothing in Minnesota, but there is a 6.25% state income tax.

[jaywil.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info! I will pay more attention!

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

That's a massive sales tax, that's got to hurt.
Are there many fake sellers on Amazon?

[susandennis]

I honestly think Amazon does a decent job of keeping a lot of fakers off their website. I am usually very cautious when NOT buying via Prime (fakers' stuff is never on Prime). I will be doubling down on that effort :)

I feel your pain.

[jocosa]

The new proposed CA road repair budget for us is going to include a a 12-cent-per-gallon tax increase on top of the already existing 18-cent base excise tax on gasoline. As well as increase vehicle registration fees, possibly adding up to $175 a year on top of what we already pay.

Sales tax in my part of San Diego county is 7.75% but other cities in San Diego are down at 6%, while others are up at 8%.

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

Isn't a lot of your food also taxed? If I remember correctly they say it's only "prepared foods" but the tax applies to probably 85% of the items in an average grocery store. Like unless you're baking your own bread and stuff, you still pay a lot of tax on food.

[susandennis]

No, not really. Not grocery food. Soda's and booze and some other odd items are taxed but most of it really is not. The law says something like if 75 percent of the item is prepared than tax, but it rarely works out that way. I buy a lot of prepared foods at the grocery store and seldom are any of them taxed.