The struggle to return an electric-blanket

We have an electric-blanket on our bed.
It’s old and worn, so Linda ordered another electric-blanket online from JCPenney.com.
The blanket depicted online was bluish, and in a newspaper-flyer was bluish, but what came was reddish.
J.C. Penney allows returning online purchases directly to their stores (Sears does that), and there’s one in Canandaigua, so we decided to attempt to exchange at their Canandaigua store.
Hitting that store is about a half-hour. It’s out beyond Weggers; so would add a half-hour to a trip to Weggers.
We’ve had that blanket about two weeks, and have tried to return it on four separate occasions.
As is always the case, an errand to Penney’s has to be combined with other errands; in this case Canandaigua.
Weggers is a Canandaigua errand; as is the YMCA.
The days get shorter and shorter, requiring walking the dog earlier and earlier.
The first idea was to merge Penney’s with the YMCA, and I’ve tried to do this twice, except the YMCA is running over 3 p.m., which requires traveling directly home (25 minutes) to walk the dog safely in the waning daylight.
So on two occasions the Penney’s errand got shoved so I could safely walk the dog up the road.
In fact, last Monday I couldn’t even walk the dog, as I had to also hit Weggers (about a half-hour) after the YMCA.
Yesterday (Wednesday, October 31, 2007) I wasn’t able to leave for Weggers until after two, mainly because of trying to finish my coffee.
(Often the coffee gets shoved aside to do errands.)
I ran yesterday morning at the so-called elitist country-club, which means breakfast at 11:30 — walking the dog there means breakfast after 12:30.
Tuesday I had to get the Bucktooth Bathtub inspected, which is a 25-minute trip to Canandaigua — 50 minutes round-trip.
The intent was to exchange the electric-blanket after that, but having no idea how long the inspection might take, I shoved the blanket-exchange aside.
I could have done it — the inspection was about 15-20 minutes. But I didn’t have the blanket, and since LeBrun Toyota is on the north side of Canandaigua, and Penney’s on the south side, add 10-15 minutes travel time.
And so the electric-blanket exchange keeps getting shoved aside. The dog is more important. He really looks forward to that walk.
I’m hoping I can exchange the blanket tomorrow (Friday, November 2, 2007), although doing so will probably require shoving the coffee aside. Running takes 1.5+ hours portal-to-portal, meaning breakfast at 11-11:30.
I also have to hit Weggers: 45-50 minutes back-and-forth to Canandaigua; 10-15 minutes inside Weggers; 10-15 minutes from the Weggers parking-lot to the Penney’s parking-lot; 10-15 minutes inside Penney’s.
It all adds up.
Today (Thursday, November 1, 2007) will be a flu-shot in Bloomfield (7-13 minutes transit-time), followed by the lawnmower place (10-15 minutes; 6-9 of which is transit-time), followed by a visit to RiteAid Pharmacy in Honeoye Falls (15-20 minutes, of which 10 is transit-time). RiteAid’s vaunted telephone prescription-renewal machine bombed again.
And now for loud input from all my siblings about how to more effectively manage my time; and that I should dump my so-called “silly MAC.”
And how bed-to-pickup at the Delaware City refinery is only five minutes. —Neither of our cars is turbocharged; nor is the shower, or my wife. The dog might be.

“Linda” is my wife of nearly 40 years.

“Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.

Our dog is “Killian;” a rescue Irish-Setter. We had a second rescue Irish-Setter, “Sabrina,” who died in March 2007.

“The so-called elitist country-club” is nearby Boughton (“BOW-tin”) Park, where we walk our dog. It was called that long ago by an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked, because it will only allow taxpayers of the three towns that own it to use it. We are residents of one of those towns.

“The Bucktooth-Bathtub” is our 2005 Toyota Sienna van; called that because it’s white and like sitting in a bathtub, and appears to have a bucktooth on the grill.

RE: “I should dump my so-called ‘silly MAC.’” All my siblings use PCs, but I use a MAC, so am therefore reprehensible. My macho, blowhard brother-in-Boston loudly insists a MAC is a mere tinker-toy.

RE: “bed-to-pickup at the Delaware City refinery is only five minutes.......” My brother-in-Delaware brags that his time from the sack to his job is hardly anything. He’s a supervisor, so therefore his perch is the driver-seat of an F150 Ford pickup. The “Delaware City refinery” is the Valero oil-refinery he works at. One of his cars is turbocharged, and he brags it is capable of 152 mph.