Third time's the charm

So, you all know that I enjoy Costco as much as the next guy... okay, I like Costco a whole lot more than the next guy ;)
That said, I managed to get more than my fill of Costco this week.

I've been getting our Holiday cards ready for the last week or so. If you've seen them from previous years, you know that create them digitally, and have the printed as photos. (oops, if you thought they were real, then pretend you didn't just read that) I usually get the images printed as 4x6" photos, and stick them in a card with an opening for a photo.

This year, I thought I'd make it easier on myself, and I decided to have them printed out as photo cards. I brought in my digital files into Costco on Tuesday, and was told that my order will be ready on Wednesday afternoon. Since I was at Costco (on Tues) I decided to get my shopping done. I've been going to the South San Francisco Costco on S. Airport Blvd. lately because it's much quieter than the SF Costco, and not much further.

I came back Wednesday afternoon, and my order was complete! I checked it out, and the photo looked great. However, there were a few typos in the text. It read:

Happy Holidays 2004
dicks, Trina, marcel and Noe

Suddenly, Dick's name is plural, and is not a pronoun ;)

I pointed out the error, and they double checked my order form (which was correct) and offered to reprint it for me. Unfortunately, they were in the middle of printing a huge job, and told me that I'd have to wait about 2 hours. Now, I had just finished all of my Costco shopping the day before, so I didnt' actually *need* anything. To top it off, I forgot to bring my cell phone with me. So i wandered around, checking out some aisles that I had skpped on Tuesday. I checked back at the 1-hour photo booth after an hour, and my order was ready. Horray! I double-checked the printing, and it was all fine, so I took my order home. When I got home, I noticed that they had cropped a good 1/4" off all sides of my image. I suppose that under other circumstances, that would be fine, but since I had created this image, I kind of wanted the entire image as I had intended it to be. (That's the perfectionist in me, I suppose) I still had 1 sample of the mis-printed card (with the typos) and noticed that it was not cropped, so I knew it was possible to have it done correctly.

Do you see where this is going?

Yep, I went back to AGAIN Costco this afternoon. I went to the photo counter, and showed them what had happened. They said they would fix it (which I appreciate) and was told it would be done in an hour. Okay. That's not bad. I had intentionally planned on eating lunch there, so I would have something to do to pass the time. One hour, and one slice of pizza later (and some more browsing around the store) I returned to the photo counter. The machine had broke, and I would still have to wait another hour :( Grrrrr... I had literally run out of things to look at around the store - and that's saying a lot! I discovered that they sell Dremmel Tools and accessories - who knew?

Another 45 minutes later, I went back to the counter to check on my status. This time, they were ready, and everything looks great. *sigh of relief*

I think I may be experiencing Costco overload now.