Color me confused ... and a tale of two Chloes

Signed, sealed, delivered ... it's mine

I have felt on several occasions of late that I am sojourning in a land of strangeness and crossed signals.

But lest you think I have become a permanent resident of the State of Confusion (which, I assure you, is not the case ... yet), I have sprinkled throughout this post several things which do not confuse me in the slightest.

Just so you know.

So let's get started.

About ten days ago I decided to hunt for a few cosmetic items online.

You're lucky that I do not tell you all about how strange my recent physical visits to the Chanel and Lancôme and Clinque counters were, at Dillard's at Columbiana Mall.

Suffice it to say, it ran from quaintly amusing to faintly bizarre. No need to say anything further, lest I bore you, my cherished readers.

So, needing to re-purchase a few products I have used in the past, but wanting to switch up my shade because I thought I could do better than the one I am already using, and earnestly desiring to complete the transaction without leaving my house, I began studying the color charts for one of the foundation formulas on Clinique's website.

As I said, I didn't necessarily want to get the same color I already had, and felt I could do better, as in a tad bit lighter.

(I am fair-skinned. Deal with it. I do not identify as a fair-skinned person; I was born this way. Which is to say, my stated skin color is the actual truth.)

The charts showed ladies of various ages and skin tones, and displayed pictures of how they looked both before and after a certain shade of makeup was applied to their face.

It was as helpful as online pictures can be, and I was doing all right until I saw this:

Say again?

OK excuse me? How exactly is this going to help me choose a makeup shade?

Look. I have no problem with this young man's appearance; that is not my point so settle down if you have concluded that I am making fun of him. I'm not.

My point is that, while I'm sure there are some boys who wear foundation and they're free to do that if they want, the overwhelming majority of people on the Clinique website to select a makeup shade are female.

I don't even have to see their internal site statistics to know that. It's just a fact.

And even if half the people searching for foundation were male, this picture of a freckled boy wearing face makeup (I assume; it's not as though you can tell) is not helping anyone choose a shade.

And it makes me wonder: What is being said or implied here? What's the takeaway? 

If you are able to figure it out, please offer any explanation that comes to mind. I will wait.

Because I remain, as originally stated, well and truly confused.

Then there was the Amazon delivery, last Friday. I was lolling in the TV room with Erica and the boys while our men toiled outside, working on our still-under-construction deck, when the doorbell rang.

I went to the door and standing on my front porch was an Amazon delivery person.

Dagny with Elliot at church on Memorial Day Sunday

A small box had been placed at my door, as per usual, but he was waiting for something.

I get a fair number of Amazon deliveries and this was the first time the doorbell was rung and a delivery person poised at the threshold with an expectant look on their face.

I said, pleasantly enough I think, and half in jest: Is this something new? Y'all ring the doorbell when you make a delivery now?

And he said, You requested it.

? ? ? ? ?

I said, Um, no, I didn't. Why would I do that? And besides, I haven't got the slightest idea HOW to do that.

Because that's the truth: I don't.

He was holding his phone in his hand as most people do now, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three-hundred sixty-five days a year, so I had no reason to think it had anything to do with me.

I picked up my package (which, because I know you're curious, contained a 33-ounce Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day Hand Soap Refill, Lemon Verbena Scent), and turned to go back inside.

So you're refusing to sign? he said.

? ? ? ? ?

I turned back around and asked him what he meant. I had not refused to sign; I had not been asked to sign.

Rhett at Elmwood Cemetery on Memorial Day morning

It requires your signature, he said.

I paused, thinking, Please someone make this make sense. But I said: What would you have done if I were not here to sign?

I would have called Support, he said.

? ? ? ? ?

Honestly folks, I was flummoxed. Again: I do not know how to request that a signature be exchanged for a delivery. Even if I did, I would not request that.

And I've never ever been asked to sign for anything before. Not even once, in all the years I have received Amazon deliveries.

What I have had is electronic notices that my item has been delivered, claiming that it was "handed directly to a resident" when it was not, in fact, delivered until the next day and shoved into my mailbox.

What I have had is notices that my item was late because "delivery was attempted" but could not be completed because there was some hindrance to delivery, as if they had been prevented from walking up the steps and putting the package down.

I have had my item delivered to neighbors, requiring me to go and hunt for it.

I have had my neighbors' items delivered to me, requiring me to re-deliver them.

All of that I have experienced more than once, at the hand of Amazon. But never have I been told that my signature was required and that I had requested this action.

Erica's birthday is May 30th ... we celebrate on Memorial Day

Be that as it may, fortunes had been made and squandered in the length of time that had transpired since I had opened my door to the Amazon delivery person, so I scribbled on the line displayed on his phone and finally he left me in peace with my soap.

If you can shed any light on that whole exchange, I would again be eternally grateful.

So I went to the kitchen and opened the box and got out my soap and refilled the dispenser on the sink, without spilling any, all the while pondering the situation, then rejoined Erica in the TV room where she was holding Elliot and watching Rhett play.

It was around that time that my friend Andrea from church contacted me via text.

My dear friend Andrea, through no fault of her own, has a certain disability that makes written communication with her challenging, her texts often being difficult to decode.

This one involved a question about whether I was "going to the wedding tomorrow?" which I suspected that Andrea's mother had ghost-written.

So I asked her what wedding she meant, since my only knowledge of an imminent wedding was not the next day (this past Saturday, June ninth), but the next Saturday, June fifteenth.

She replied: Chloe D, except she gave Chloe D's whole last name.

Chloe D is a young lady in our church who I know only slightly, and hers were the nuptials I knew to be looming. TG and I are not invited to the wedding.

But Erica knows Chloe D quite well, since Chloe goes to Cherica's house for several hours one day a week, to look after the boys while Erica runs errands and has some free time.

Birthday balloons always make sense

Since Erica was sitting right there with me when I heard from Andrea, I double-checked that Chloe D's wedding was taking place not the next day, but a week from the next day.

Erica confirmed that Chloe D's wedding was set for the fifteenth, so I texted that information to Andrea, who I figured had got her wires crossed. Or, like me, did not receive an actual invitation, but had only heard of the wedding through the church grapevine.

A wedding! I love weddings! (That's a line uttered by Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribean: Curse of the Black Pearl.)

So Andrea texted back OK and I figured that was settled. Crisis averted.

Several hours later though, after the Chericas had gone home, Audrey and Mike and Dagny came over and we were sitting around having coffee. All we do at my house is sit around.

I relayed to Audrey the story of Andrea texting, asking if I were going to Chloe's wedding tomorrow, and Erica assuring me that Chloe's wedding is next Saturday, and my texting Andrea to tell her as much.

I wanted to know if she and Mike had been invited to the wedding.

No, but Chloe IS getting married tomorrow, Audrey said.

She told me that she knew this for a fact because Miss Pat was involved in the wedding and therefore was attending the rehearsal and dinner that very night. 

(Miss Pat is a lady whose house Audrey cleans every Friday. We have known Miss Pat since 2002, when we moved to Columbia. Her husband served as our realtor when we bought our current house.)

It was exceptionally sweet but we ate it with glee

Oh no! I said. I told Andrea that it was not tomorrow, but next Saturday!

I quickly texted my friend Andrea, who, trust me, is much more easily confused than I.

I was mistaken, I said. Chloe's wedding IS tomorrow. I won't be there. Do you have an invitation?

A few moments later she responded: 15.

That's typical so I am pretty sure I had a puzzled look on my face, and not for the first time that day.

I called Erica, and had her on speaker phone but she had only said Hello? when Audrey, for whom the nickel had just dropped, blurted:

No it's Chloe G tomorrow (only, she said Chloe G's whole last name)! Chloe G is getting married in the morning!

A different Chloe.

Audrey iterated that the reason she knew this is that she had talked that very day to Miss Pat, who was set to be the stand-in for Chloe G's late grandmother at the wedding the next day, and therefore was attending the rehearsal that night.

I am sure that I looked positively brainless at that moment but I managed to sputter to Erica: Never mind! We had a mixup! Chloe G is tomorrow and Chloe D is next week as was originally and so beautifully planned (that's a line uttered by Tracy Lord in The Philadelphia Story), and now I have led Andrea astray and I have to fix it!

Erica with her boys on her birthday

I texted Andrea back once more and risked her eternal mental discombobulation by telling her that there had been a mixup and that Chloe D's wedding was indeed a week from Saturday, and we'd been talking about another Chloe -- Chloe G -- who was getting married the next day.

(Chloe G is well known to all of us. She is the granddaughter of the late pastor of the church we attended when we first moved to Columbia in 2002. It's three miles from the church we all attend now. Her late grandmother is the one who Miss Pat, a friend of our entire family, was standing in for at the wedding the next day.)

(BTW I have never heard of having a stand-in for a late family member at a wedding. Have you? I've heard of a rose on a seat representing their absence and the fact that they're missed, but not an actual person. I'm perplexed. But what else is new?)

(And not for nothing but to confuse matters you further, my friend Andrea was once engaged to be married to the son of Miss Pat and her husband, our realtor, who also suffers a mild disability that is in no way his fault. The son, not the realtor.)

Andrea wrote back: 15.

I know that she will hand the phone to her mother when I write too many words, so I was not worried.

And Chloe G did get married last Saturday, and is now Mrs. Chloe W.

Chloe D is all set to get married this Saturday, and our Cherica will be there as she becomes Mrs. Chloe S.

A picture of Sweetness. Her, I understand.

Who's on first? You tell me because I haven't the remotest idea.

Everything I think and everything I do is wrong. That's a line uttered by Cher Horowitz in Clueless.

But at least we have enough soap.

And that is all for now.

=0=0=0=

Happy Monday

Comments

[Mari]

My word! I'm confused and discombobulated too! You've had all sorts of craziness going on.
I'd say Clinique is being woke and attempting to point out that men can wear make-up too. I myself am pretty tired of that woke stuff being pushed on us all the time.
Amazon - what in the world? I've had all the experiences you have, but have never been asked to sign. Glad you got your soap!
As for the Chloe weddings - sounds like a comedy routine!
I hope you have your thoughts back in order and this week is a little more normal. :)

[Jennifer]

@Mari ... hahahaha we have a lot going on this week, as you shall soon see! It's like a merry-go-round of events and functions and doings and so forth! And no deck to walk on, hahaha! I get the woke part of that photo but what I don't get is what is obviously a light-skinned black boy covered with freckles, pretending that that pale makeup shade was even visible on his face. It's just bizarre! It can't possibly help someone to choose a shade, and they had to know that but they did it anyway! It just fails to compute. Yes I have soap and there are some weddings in my future but no Chloe weddings, hahahaha! xoxo

[Ginny Hartzler]

You do truly entertain me with the way you write! You are sure a bright spot in my day! No, I never heard of this wedding stand-in. That is for sure weird to me. I think you are extremely unlucky with amazon! I have never had any problems with them, and we order a lot. About the freckled boy. I am thinking they wanted to show how the makeup works on freckles, and they used the most freckled person they could find. Sweetness is gorgeous!

[Jennifer]

@Ginny ... well I am so grateful that you are entertained! It's very special to me to think that I am a bright spot to anyone, hahaaa! I love your wonderful posts too. Yes I think Amazon has targeted me for weirdness. What else can it be? And I am such a good customer, hahaha! The freckled boy looks like a sweet young man but he was ill-used in this instance. Shame on them. And yes I agree that my Sweetness is a beautiful kitty! I adore her! xoxo

[Barwitzki]

I had a lot of fun this morning with my cup of coffee in my hand and your words... Thank you.
We have several delivery services and there is one where I have to sign with my index finger on the device held up... that's done with a smile, or rather a squiggle :-) I'll check whether it's on Amazon.
This wedding mess was delicious, I'm sure the celebrations were too. In any case, your cakes look wonderful.
A kind greeting to you.
p.s. I hope the freckled boy at least made some good money from this promotional image.
And cheers to Erika - hug -

[Skunk (aka Mike Bay)]

I have no light to shed on Amazoid...I stopped using them in 2021. I eagerly await the day an Amazoid drone knocks on my patio window to demand something...seconds before I blow it out of existence. 'Tis a day to remember, indeed.

[AC]

To say the least, life has been interesting around there. The Amazon thing confuses me, and the Clinique thing is odd to say the least. As for the weddings, I think you got it sorted, but I am not sure that I have.

[Jennifer]

@Viola ... Oh my, surely Amazon does not make you sign for packages there! I am going to lose my mind if they start that here but I choose to believe this was a mistake and/or an anomaly, hahaha! Yes I hope the freckled boy got lots of money for helping no one! Hahahaha just kidding xoxo

@Mike ... I wish I could see that, and I wish Amazon did not have me so firmly on the hook! It's inconceivable, life without them. Isn't that pathetic? Love to Seymour! xoxo

@John ... hahaha yes we got the wedding thing sorted for sure -- one Chloe down, one to go! And I didn't have to buy a single gift! The rest of it is for sure still a mystery. xoxo

[Lori]

Ok I have to admit this all made my head hurt a little bit. That is a bit too much craziness to endure in one afternoon. We have not had trouble with any deliveries so far and no, we have not had to sign for anything. I could barely tell a difference from one picture on Clinique to the other so whatever their message was intended to be, it was lost on me. The picture of Sweetness is adorable!! It's almost like she is looking at you with sympathy. Her and Binx would make a handsome couple. xoxo

[Jennifer]

@Lori ... Believe me, my head was hurting for a few minutes there too! It really was funny though. Just such nonsense. The Clinique thing is just plain old ridiculous. I'm tired of being gaslit by companies, trying to tell me I see something that's not there. No I don't! And I'm not going to say that I do! And yes my Sweetness is the sweetest most adorable kitty and I would love to see her hang out with Binx! They'd have us in stitches with their cute antics. xoxo

[Jim and Barb]

So, you didn't go to the wedding? I got an invitation, I am surprised that you didn't! Actually, my head was about to explode by the end of your post. I'd be confused too! Our Amazon driver knocks or honks, but he's never standing there with an expectant look on his face. And don't even get me going on demographics and marketing agencies. Those people are seriously confused!

[Donna]

Lolololll...well...I simply will say, “Houston, we have a problem.” -Apollo 13, 1995
A rather confusing day...lolol...and I also have Never signed Anything from Amazon...he must have been new to the job.
hugs
Donna

PS-Happy Birthday sweet Erica!

[Judee]

What crazy stories! I really do not get the male model with a thousand freckles as your model to try to choose a color. That is beyond crazy. However, I might be a little suspicious of the Amazon signature because you put your signature into this person's phone and now he/she/they/ them/ her/it/ has your signature electronically- Perhaps you but should find out who that delivery person was and verify it with Amazon that this person is collecting signatures and is that kosher? I never heard of an Amazon delivery with a signature. As far as the next story with the wedding- I'm still confused. Hope it all worked out. Love the pic of your beautiful cat!

[Jennifer]

@Jim and Barb ... hahahaha so YOU got an invite and I didn't? This means WAR! Oh wait ... which Chloe? Haaaha ... seriously can you believe how brief are our moments of lucidity in this house? Amazon drivers are positively the limit. Oh and I still think you photoshopped that pic of Barb and the gargantuan fish. Just saying! xoxo

@Donna ... my friend I think that driver may be new to the universe, hahaha! That was bizarre. BTW I did receive your precious envelope for Dagny and she will open it on her birthday, which is this Friday! xoxo

@Judee ... Well, he did bring the soap I'd ordered, and on time, and I did not really put my signature, hahaha! It was a squiggle that no one would recognize. I just think that he was as confused as I was. So you didn't understand all about the two brides named Chloe getting hitched a week apart within a few miles of one another? Do keep up, Judee! Haaahaha just kidding xoxo

[Carla TePaske]

WOW... I got confused about the weddings.... Hee Hee... And as far as the Amazon Driver... help us all if this is the future of America.
Carla

[Jennifer]

@Carla ... well, both Chloes are married now, hahahahahaha! Amazon drivers ... don't get me started ... xoxo