Saturday, February 28, 2009

Logistics

Amazon has disappointed me. Indeed, their actions have subjected me to great peril.

We order everything from Amazon. Ok, maybe not everything, but we do order a lot of different things from Amazon because we live in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Using Amazon helps us fight back against high local prices on a variety of items, including toilet paper.

Yup, we order our toilet paper from Amazon.

Amazon has a Distribution Center in DFW, so we can order and it's delivered the next day, maybe two. Amazon sells it in large jumbo packs, similar to what you might find at Sam's Club so we don't have to order it very often. And it saves us a little money.

At this point, you're probably asking yourself why I'm blogging about this.

Well, you see, a few weeks ago we started to run out of toilet paper. We procrastinated a little too long and suddenly we realized we were down to our last two rolls, one in each of our bathrooms. This wasn't a big deal because, Amazon always comes through and delivers in one or two days for us. So, we logged on to our Amazon Prime account and ordered our favorite TP.

The next day it didn't arrive. No biggie. It always comes by the second day. A quick check of our "inventory" revealed that we were still in the safety zone, but we'd need to step things up with our just-in-time (JIT) vendor to make sure we didn't run out of material for "production".

We checked the Amazon website, and to our horror, our toilet paper had shipped from Nevada instead of DFW. OMG! We issued orders to the kids to be extra conservative in their paper usage. Addi obliged us by unrolling half of the kids' bathroom roll down the hallway. Blast!

The next afternoon when I came home from work, this is what I saw in the bathroom:



I checked the kids' inventory and found that it was perilously close to the same condition. I ran to the computer, hoping and praying that by some miracle Fedex Ground would come through for me and deliver our stuff before we ran out. It turns out that our toilet paper was somewhere between Utah and Oklahoma.

What to do? What to do?

Hold it for a couple days? Unlikely.

Borrow from the neighbors? (Imagine what that would have been like... Hey Bud, can I borrow some TP?)

It was hopeless. Realizing that our JIT system had failed us, we finally relented, got in the van, and drove to the place I hate most: WalMart.

Ironically, once we re-stocked with a small 4-roll pack, our consumption dropped.

Two days later, our TP finally arrived and we now are flush with 43 rolls.

5 comments:

Anna May said...

Shame on Amazon for being so slow. =)

Anonymous said...

I guess you might say Amazon had a blockage.

ephtwoate said...

How about something new?

ephtwoate said...

uh joeboy I expected and update by now. You must be very busy.

Katherine in Sarasota said...

Okay. I don't know what to think. First, Jeni comes to Florida. And, I am okay with that. But. Then. My daughter shows me her blog. And, I am okay with that, too.

But then, I find myself enjoying her blog and even leaving comments (because she mentioned that I hadn't, COUGH, left any).

Then, I notice she has other blogs listed and so, I go to them. And, I am okay with that. But, those blogs are pretty funny, too. And THOSE blogs have other blogs listed.

And so now I look at the time and whoa. I am in deep trouble when hubby gets home and nothing has been done.

This is all your fault. All of you, Shame! Shame! On the bright side, I have seen bold cinema on nerf guns and learned NOT to ride a bike with a tight skirt. Perhaps I am richer for the experience. Only time will tell.

And I guess I am glad to know I am not the first person to labor over something (like a swingset, or, in my case, an extruded aluminum above-ground pool) just before selling the house where it was pretty permanently installed. That is the way it always happens.

This is Katherine. I kept you up in the long night hours, regaling you with long boring stories while I tried to make Anna's dress fit her better.

Thanks for the clue on toilet paper. I must go now and seek out Amazon. Because for me and my house, we will be thankful to save money WITHOUT being grumpy that we don't happen to live close enough for next day shipping. Like some people.

See. Long boring stories in the evenings,long boring blog comments in the daytime. I go now.