A couple of years ago I wrote about a situation in which I was planning on redeeming a gift card given to me for my birthday only to find out the balance of the card had been whittled down to close to nothing and basically useless by monthly card management “fees”. Apparently I did not learn from that experience as I seem to have run into another situation where I am getting swindled out of yet another gift card balance, this time at Borders. I recently (within the last year, I think) received a Borders gift card from someone (I do not remember who). I was not really in a rush to redeem it as they apparently have a “never expires” policy on their gift cards. Well tonight whilst attempting to redeem my Borders gift card online, I found out it was yet again, without balance.

Now wait a minute. I am pretty sure I had not spent it as it had been sitting on my desk for the past however long waiting for me to actually do something with it.

I decided to give the Borders “gift card” customer support a call. So I called and found out the scoop. According the them, and unbeknownst to me and most likely my unsuspecting gift giver, the card had never actually been “activated” or “loaded” with any balance. Which meant, yep, good ol’ Skowronek gets shafted again out of a gift card birthday present.

Moral of the story (I believe in Tennessee or Texas), fool me once … shame on you … the fool me … can’t get fooled again. Perhaps I should not accept any more gift cards as gifts, they appear to be bad karma.

By the way, if any of you reading this did happen to give me a Borders gift card recently, please let me know so I can track down whether or not you also, are getting the shaft (having been charged and not actually having received anything in return.)

After roughly a month-and-a-half of planning, coordination, and a few stressful days and nights, the Miss Spectacular 2008 competition went off without a hitch. Created to celebrate the thirtieth birthday of my beloved wife, Nicole, it serves as a reminder that nothing, and I mean NOTHING is to risque, taboo, or off-color for our rather crazy group of friends.

The pageant contestants were from all across the globe. A rather trashy filly from Costa Rica. A sweet and innocent beauty from Australia. A reserved and unrecognizable something from Afghanistan. A rather tempting “sister” from Texas. And last but not least, the blond German tank.