Back in 1988, I bought my first pair of Timberland boots. They were a nice, heavy-duty pair of 8 inch high-tops with thick vibram soles. I had just been divorced, and was doing a lot of hiking in the regional mountain parks in northern Jersey and southern New York state, to help get my mind back together. Those boots and I put a fair number of miles in on the trails, and were also good companions in snow storms and other bad weather. They were good shoes to have whenever the terrain was bumpy or wet, or you were trying to get some real physical work done.

Well, nothing lasts forever, but those boots sure lasted much longer than most. They finally bit the dust about a month ago, when the top came unglued from the sole as I was changing a car tire. They served almost 22 years! But the time had finally come to get a new pair of heavy boots.

So I checked the web, and it turned out that Timberland was still making butt-kicking 8-inch boots, under the “Timberland Pro” monicker. I went on Amazon, and they had what I wanted, the soft toe version in size 8, and the price was about $104. I quickly looked at some other sites but wasn’t able to find anything better. So I punched my order in with Amazon and got my free shipping. I would need to wait a few days for Amazon to send them out, under the free shipping arrangement; but no problem there. All seemed well.

About a week later, I rechecked my e-mails to see if Amazon had shipped them yet. Nope, didn’t see a shipping e-mail, so I re-checked the original order e-mail, to see what they had promised. It was then I noticed that the order was for the wrong size! I could have sworn that I selected size 8, but the reply e-mail said that I ordered size 8 and ½. With heavy boots like that, you risk getting nasty blisters when the size is wrong, so I shot a quick e-mail to Amazon’s customer service, asking if the order could be cancelled or changed. Somebody from India replied, sending his or her (hard to tell with some of those Indian names) regrets that the order was about to be shipped and could no longer be cancelled. HOWEVER, they did suggest that I not open the package when received, and that I “refuse delivery” as to send it back (for free) to Amazon for a refund.

I received the package from the Postal Service about 4 days later, and did some checking about how to refuse an unopened package. It turns out to be fairly easy; so long as the package is not opened, all you need do is get out a marker and write “REFUSED” on the mailing label, and then take it back to the local post office. So I did that and it wasn’t too much of a hassle, given that there’s a post office that stays open until 6 along my route home from work (it’s rare to find one of those these days). I had to wait about 15 minutes in line (which is pretty good, as I’ve seen half-hour or longer lines at some post offices), but the clerk promptly took the package back, no objections. And about a week later, I got an e-mail from Amazon saying that they had the package and were about to give me a full refund on my credit card.

So the return went OK. But I still needed some new boots. So I went back to Amazon and tried again. They still had 8-inch Timberland Pros in my size, so I punched in another order, being VERY careful to hit the “Size 8” line. Everything seemed to go well, and there was even a silver lining, of sorts. For whatever reason, the price had come down by $4; I was now buying the same boot for $100.

I haven’t received my boots yet, but hopefully I will soon have another pair of heavy-duty Timberlands in the right size. And perhaps it worked out for the best anyway, as I managed to save a few bucks; that’s at least partial compensation for the hassle of returning the original package. The final question, a mystery really, is what went wrong the first time? Did I make a “fat finger error” when I was ordering my boots?

Admittedly, situations like this usually involve human error. I am getting old, and my mind isn’t what it used to be. But once in a great while the computer systems also slip up. So who knows. It’s all part of the game of life today, when we are buying more and more things on-line or from automatic check-out stands in stores, and not from another person. There are pros and cons to both the old and the new. But it’s nice to see that even with an automated, scientific system like Amazon’s ordering process, the “powers of fate” can still intervene, and it can sometimes all work out “for the best”.