Do y’all ever get side-tracked when you go on the internet? I sure do. I just wanted to look up “bags” on the internet, and got all carried away (I’ll tell you why I was looking in a minute). It’s a good thing I can never find my purse, or I’d whup out that credit card and be spending some serious money! Here’s a little bit of what I found.

I first was looking for Medicine bags, because I’ve had a fascination with them since reading about them in a book as a child. I have my own, made of velvet and beads. I keep some special trinkets in it: a silver “storyteller doll,” a tiny petrified clam (so I won’t “clam up” in front of an audience), a paper crane a little girl gave me, a shark’s tooth, an ivory elephant, and a religious medallion. All of them hold special meanings to me.

The Soft Leather Studio has handcrafted leather medicine pouches, in case you are interested in one to hold your own “lucky charms.”

With Valentine’s Day on its way, some of you ladies might be expecting jewelry as a gift. You can find lovely cloth jewelry bags to hold your loot at Bags and Bows

But, if you are planning to get jewelry, you’d better tell that significant other about it! If you are a blogger, enter the Valentine Wishes contest at SusieJ.com

She’s got prizes!

Do any of y’all remember the Unknown Comic? What a great way to release your inhibitions. Put a paper bag over your head, and you too could make money. No one would ever know it was you; just learn a few stupid jokes, and you can be the life of the party.

Speaking of parties, for your next movie party, order your own Popcorn Bags at Bagmakers, Inc. Surely you could come up with something a little more exciting than these.

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After you have eaten all the popcorn, you might need Barf Bags from Oriental Trading. Who in the world comes up with these ridiculous ideas?

If your yard is buried in leaves, you can get yourself some Biodegradable Leaf Bags at This Next. Better yet, just let the wind blow the leaves into your neighbor’s yard.

But, be sure to get rid of the leaves before you stick candles in a bags and make luminarias to line your walkways.

Funroom will show you how to makePaper Bag Puppets, just in case you need one. I’m thinking that you probably don’t need one, and if you do then you probably don’t need instructions, but I stole their picture so I thought it would be polite to link to them.

When you have five cats around the house, you have to think about cat litter bags, Unless you have a Cat Genie, which promises that you will never touch litter again,. This contraption costs $369 at Petco. It might be wonderful, but I can buy a lot of cat litter bags for that price.

Want to go green with grocery bags? Re-usable grocery bags are all the rage around here. You can buy bags for $1.99 each plus shipping at Bags On The Run. You have to order a minimum of 10, but if you shop like I do you could fill 10 bags each trip to the store in a heartbeat.

Some women like to buy shoes, but purses are my downfall, especially vintage purses. Yep, I’m definitely a bag lady. You can find a truckload of lovely ones at Vintage in Style. Oh, I’d seriously buy this one. But, I’d still never be able to find it when I want my credit card.

Why was I looking up bags? Well, there have been some of us working on making 140 afghans for children with cancer who will be attending a summer camp this year. Each afghan that we are making has squares from 48 different people. Each person added a tag to their squares to tell their name and where they live.

One afghan was given to “Mr. T.” who is battling leukemia. He was fascinated by the tags. He shuffled them like cards. Wouldn’t it be a shame for a child to lose those tags? We decided to make special bags for them. Sherry at Yellow Rose’s Garden, and Barbara at The Purplemoose Gazette are spearheading the drive to get 140 bags for these children. Please check out their posts. If you are the least bit “crafty,” you might be interested in making a bag.

If you aren’t, you can help us spread the word. PLEASE!

Sherry has some images you can use for your sidebar that are pretty. If you want to use the paper bag, I’ll tell you the code to add the images on the Share A Square blog.

Now, y’all go visit some other Thursday Thirteen participants. I hope your day is good!

Have y’all ever gone through the fast food drive-thru, with a carload of kids squealing in the backseat? And, you ordered a bagful of burgers, fries and some chicken nuggets for Junior (because he’s been driving you nuts begging for them for thirty minutes)? And, you pay for your order and get back on the highway and you drive away? And, five miles down the road, you discover that Junior’s chicken nuggets weren’t in the bag? Do you know how he starts to wail and moan at the top of his lungs? And, do you know how your start to curse the goofball who gave you the wrong order?

I’m wailing and moaning like Junior right now. I’m also cursing the goofball who gave me the wrong order!

A few days ago, I told y’all that I had bought myself a new Apple computer. The Dell pc that I had been using was on its last legs, and I was getting tired of it crashing all the time. My son urged me to get an Apple, because he assured me that if I had problems the “Apple Geniuses” could help me solve them. That’s what they call the tech support at the Apple Stores.

I don’t think they call the sales people that.

Yes, they toot their own horn at Apple, and right now they’ve hit a sour note with me.

On the day I bought my computer (at the Apple Store at Willow Bend, in Plano, TX), the young pup salesman brought me the box with my new MacBook Pro, and another box with the “Protection Plan,” an extended three year warranty (because we don’t have luck with computers!) that I purchased. I paid a pretty penny for it, too. Well, put it on my credit card is what I did.

I’ve spent the last several days just trying to figure out how it works, but I had been liking it well enough. I’m not terribly sold on it yet, but I’ll admit that I haven’t had time to try out all the “bells and whistles.”

Tonight, I tried to install the Protection Plan, but couldn’t get it registered. We had to call “Apple Support.” I didn’t find that they lived up to their name.

I reached a gal who had a thick accent (I’m assuming she was not in the United States). Y’all might be aware that I have a pretty thick Texas accent of my own. We didn’t understand each other very well at all. Half of the time, one or the other of us was saying, “Could you repeat that please?” OK, I admit that I was saying, “Do whut?” but it means the same thing. The other half of the time, I was on “hold.” That’s another way of saying, “ignore.”

For almost an hour.

Then, my “Support” person informed my that I had bought the wrong protection plan. Excuse me lady, but let’s re-phrase that, I bought a MacBook Pro, and was given sold the Protection Plan for a Mac Pro. How could this problem be solved? She explained that she could charge me for the correct plan and register it for me. However, my refund for the plan the store sold me would not show up on my credit card for two to three billing cycles!!!

What kind of racket is that? I don’t want to pay interest on $269 and some change for three months!

I told her, “Thank you very much, I’ll deal with the store.”

So, I called the Apple Store at Willow Bend. Now a very polite young lady at the store asked me if I had opened the box with the disc in it. Yes, of course I did. I was installing the protection plan they sold me for my computer. In a sad voice she said, “If it’s been opened, we can’t give you a refund, it has to come through Apple Support.”

What the…?

I explained, “This problem is not one that I created. YOU sold me the wrong plan. This is YOUR mistake not MINE. I didn’t pick that off the shelf, your salesman handed it to me as the plan for the computer he sold me.” She spoke to a manager, and arranged for me to take the computer to the store tomorrow, and one of the Apple Geniuses will install the proper protection plan. Of course, I have to drop everything I had planned for tomorrow to drive a seventy-five mile round trip AND they are going to charge me for the new plan AND I might not get my refund for two to three months anyway.

Tomorrow, I’ll update this post and let y’all know how it went. I’m hoping that the store does right by me. I’m hoping that I get to come home and learn to enjoy this new Mac Book Pro (fortunately, I haven’t put many files on it yet).

If they aren’t going to make it right, do y’all think I should call American Express and dispute the claim for that $269? Tell me what you think.

AND, if you are buying a new computer any time soon, double check that bag, or you might end up wailing and moaning.

Like Junior and me.

Technorati Tags: Apple Store at Willow Bend, Apple Support, Protection Plan

It was hard to get a screenshot of this, because it has that flash animation. But, I know one of my suitcases was on the picture before this one!

Have y’all seen this website? It’s for a store in Scottsboro, Alabama that is called Unclaimed Baggage Center. This place covers a city block and claims to sell over one million items annually! According to their promotion, twenty times a day new stock is added (7,000 items daily!). They buy unclaimed baggage and cargo, and sell it at 50-80% off of the retail price.

Now, I don’t know about you, but this amount of merchandise makes me wonder a bit about the efficiency of our airlines to transport luggage. That just seems like a lot of lost bags. I’ve never actually had luggage lost; I lied about seeing my suitcase. Usually, I make sure that I’ve got my name all over the place in the bags I take. And, I’m careful not to send anything in my baggage that I don’t want to lose…or that I would be embarrassed to claim!

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I learned that many years ago, after hearing a story a librarian told me about her experience with lost luggage. Now keep in mind that this woman was almost old enough to be my mother. She was plump, gray-haired, and dressed in a very matronly style of clothing (which is to say that there was no style). I had never met the woman before in my life, but she started babbling and couldn’t seem to stop. She proceeded to tell me that she and her husband had gone on a trip; it was something of a “second honeymoon.”

In meticulous detail, she described a suitcase they had packed. You see, they had some (ahem) activities planned for which they needed certain “accouterments.” She described to me things that vibrated, items made out of leather and chains, and much more than I really wanted to hear from anyone, let alone a woman who reminded me of my mother! Especially not while I was sitting in a school library, with very good acoustics,where children might eavesdrop!

But, I’m polite, especially if you are paying me, so I listened and tried to have a nonchalant look on my face. However, because of my complexion, I blush easily, and I believe that librarian was enjoying making me uncomfortable. I really didn’t want to know all about this woman’s sex life, but that gal blabbed about everything that should have been private about her conjugal relationship.

Of course, she told me, when they arrived at their destination, that bag never came off the airplane, although all their other bags did. “Did you fill out a claim form for it?” I asked.

“No!” she exclaimed, with her eyes wide in shock. “We just went out and bought more. It would have been too embarrassing to explain that to strangers.”

I was proud to hear she had some sense of discretion. Hmm. I wonder if any of her lost accouterments were sold at that store? Nah. Probably some unscrupulous baggage inspector opened that bag and thought, “Whoo Doggies! Mama and I are gonna have a good time tonight!”

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So let that be a lesson to you! Don’t you go carrying those naughty items with you when you go on vacation, because they might wind up in a picture on-line! Just buy what you need when you get to your destination.

Unclaimed Baggage Center shows a lot of merchandise on the site, but you can’t buy it without going to the store, because it sells as fast as they can stock it. The site says, “We’re as fascinated as you are to see what’s in the store!”

Established in 1970, the store has grown to the point that within it there is a Concierge Desk (isn’t that what Wal Mart calls an “Information Desk?”), a play area for the toddlers, and an Espresso Cafe. Though 60% of their stock is clothing, they also have cameras and other electronics, cds, books…well anything that you can imagine someone would send in their luggage or cargo shipment (and some things you don’t want to imagine!).

Go browse the on-line store. They have a guessing game called, “What is it?” If you guess and win, there’s a prize “souvenir” from the store. Maybe you can win one of the librarian’s accouterments!

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Don’t forget to enter your funny post in This Eclectic Life’s This Blog Blows My Dress Up Contest! The deadline is fast approaching. There are several good entries, but I hope you share one, too. I still notice in my stats that people are reading the posts from the last contest.
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Technorati Tags: unclaimed baggage, This Eclectic Life’s This Blog Blows My Dress Up Contest