Bathhouse 26

At long last, we’ve finally got the last of our roofing materials.  The process has been far more difficult than it should have been; in Oklahoma, we had a choice of several local vendors and were able to quickly find and purchase what we wanted.  But here in Washington, the process was slow, confusing, and far more expensive than it had to be, and we eventually had to deal with three different vendors.  For this particular product (PBR panels, for those who understand the subject) we had to contract with a company in Tennessee to pick up the product in the Seattle area; my card was charged on October 29^th, and when I had heard nothing about where or when to pick up our materials by November 30^th, I called to inquire.  An email the next day told me that our order was ready and provided a tracking number, but still no address or phone number of the facility.  Yet another phone call was required to obtain those, but when I called the place they wanted a PO number rather than the tracking number I was given, and the clerk couldn’t find my order in the computer by name because the salesman misspelled it (despite my spelling it for him phonetically, more than once).  Finally they managed to locate it, and Chekhov took the trailer to pick it up.  And once we finally had it in hand, I could start the process of tracking down my promised refund of the shipping charge, which somehow mysteriously vanished between the order and my credit card.  As of this writing, I still don’t know what’s up with that, but even after I find it there’s no way I’m going to recommend this particular company to anyone else, even if I do think it’s due to the salesman being the owner’s son-in-law, ne’er-do-well nephew, or some other person unlikely to be fired merely because he’s startlingly incompetent.