Mind the Gap

I am so friggin' embarrassed!  Long story short, I love the Gap, but they totally let me down yesterday and now I'm just mortified.  You might think I'm silly or going to extremes using words like mortified, but if you know me in real life (which some of you do) then you understand.

So here's the back-story:

We moved from Virginia to California when Bunkey was 19 days old.  Since life was a bit chaotic, I waited until we were settled and then sent his birth announcements out along with a little change of address card in each envelope.  In addition to sending announcements to all our friends, I sent a few to some of my mom's closest and dearest friends as well.  In no way did I send the announcements in order to receive gifts from people.  I really just wanted to let folks know, since so many of our family and friends are strewn about the country, that Bunkey had been born and that we'd made it safely across the country.  In all honesty, I probably wouldn't have sent as many announcements as I did, but so many people came to my dad's funeral, found out I was preggers, and requested to be kept in the loop.  Like I said, close family and friends.

Needless to say, lots of people sent us baby gifts.  Some, especially the ones from my parents' friends, were very nice gifts.  And for those of you with babies, you know that things can add up really quickly, so there's no way I was going to turn down free stuff!  But, for those who know me, you know I'm a thank you note nazi, so of course I sent everyone hand written notes expressing my thanks, etc etc.  I sincerely did not expect gifts, but they were most definitely appreciated, especially with all the added hidden costs of moving into a new house!

Anyway, my mom's dear dear friend (I'll call her J), who lived down the street from us in Northern Virginia, watched me grow up, came to my wedding, came to Dad's funeral, in a nutshell a very close friend, sent us a great gift back in July.  Several outfits from Baby Gap.  And, like many, she thought California = great weather and sent shorts.  In 0-3 month sizes.  By that time, Bunkey was already getting into 3-6 month sizes.  And shorts don't work so well in the 60-degree weather we have in Monterey.  And we don't have a Baby Gap here.  So I wrote J a thank you note about how cute the clothes were and how much I loved them.  I didn't see the point in writing a thank you note that said, "Thanks for the clothes.  I love them, but they're the wrong size and it's too cold for shorts here."  I didn't want to hurt J's feelings, so I told her I loved them, which was the truth; they simply didn't work for our situation.  Then I packed up the clothes, filled out the return slip asking for Gap to send me a gift card, and dropped the box off at UPS with the prepaid return shipping label.  I figured that in 4-6 weeks I'd receive the gift certificate and I'd reorder some Baby Gap clothes for Bunkey in the correct size and with long pants/sleeves.  

I forgot all about the gift, the return, and the gift certificate until yesterday, when I was going through a drawer and found the copy of the receipt that I made before I mailed everything back.  I couldn't believe that I still hadn't received anything after two months, so I called Gap. And wouldn't you know it, they did issue a refund, only instead of sending a gift certificate to me, they refunded J's credit card!  On August 4th!  So, to remind you, J ordered stuff on July 19th, had it sent to us, received a thank you note about its awesomeness, and then got a refund.  She was probably thinking I was a snotty ungrateful bitch who didn't want to look bad so I lied in my thank you note!  Enter my mortification...  Apparently when J ordered the clothes, she didn't specify that these were a gift, and Gap's policy in that situation is to make refunds to the same method of payment, regardless of the fact that their return slip gave me the option of receiving a gift certificate!  They offered me 20% off my next purchase but told me there was nothing they could do about the other situation since the money had been refunded almost two months ago.

So I called my mom in tears.  What should I do?  I could think of a few situations...  I could do nothing, and hope J didn't even notice the refund on her card, and then none of this matters.  I could send J an email explaining the whole thing, tell her I did love the clothes and simply wanted to reorder them, but Gap screwed up.  If I took the first option, I ran the risk that J did notice and thinks poorly of me (and my mom) for not being genuine in my thank you note and therefore gets her feelings hurt.  But if I did the second option, I run the risk of her feeling as if she needs to send us a new gift, and I didn't want her to feel obligated to do that either.

In the end, I sent her a note.  I explained everything that happened, what my intentions were, and that she did not in any way need to send us a gift, but that I wanted her to know that I did appreciate that she'd thought of us!  If I know J, she'll still send another gift, and I'll feel bad, but at least I'll know that she knows I wasn't ungrateful or dishonest in my original thank you note...

What would you have done?

In other news, we finally got Bunkey to roll over a few times in a row so that we could capture the moment on video: