Virtual Decorating: Olio Aglio Pepperoncini

My dearest friend Barbara and I were at one time single-girl neighbors, living in California.  We would walk over to each other’s house for a glass of wine, and often end up talking about decorating, as she was usually in the midst of some decorating dilema.  Being the corporate “what’s wrong with right now?” girls, talking would end up as doing.  Hanging pictures, moving furniture, you name it, all under the influence.

Now, we are both married, living on opposite sides of the country, so our decorating has become more virtual, sans the vino.  We’ll spend time sharing our desktops, looking on-line for design solutions.  I think we actually remodeled her kitchen that way.  There was even talk of me being the project manager, cuz that’s what I do.

After I posted the Black Painted Cats, she got inspired, and wanted to do them for an upcoming Halloween Party.   I offered to send her samples of the materials from Michael’s so she would know what to purchase, and we even got on-line together to source the black spray paint Chris had used on those pumpkins (Kimball Midwest High Gloss Black #880-80, not available at most hardware stores).

Piece of Cake, right? 

Wrong. 

You know you live in the boonies when the Yellow Pages lists the Brown store as the FedEX store, and they tells you the nearest FedEx Store is 20 miles away. 

Barbara (via mobile):  Well, just send the stuff with UPS and I’ll send you a check.  How much could it be? Twenty bucks?

Me (at the Brown Store): How much to ship this to zip code 90210?

Brown:  $67.89

See what Brown can do for you?

Off to our United States Postal Service. 

Me:  How much to ship this to zip code 90210?

USPS:  $37.95 for Guaranteed, and $31.89 if you don’t care when it gets there.  Oh, and fill out this form, and give me the name of your first born.

Yeah.  No.  (Your tax dollars and mine at work.)

Now I’m mad.  So I put my Project Manager hat on, and proceeded.  Back to my desk, to the FedEx Website to find the nearest drop box.  Better to trust them than Yellow, right?  Barbara emails me a FedEx shipping label from her on-line account, and I’m off again.

It would have been easier to mail myself to California to make them for her.  More expensive, but at least we could have made them over a bowl of Olio Aglio Pepperoncino and a glass of vino together.