Discouraged

That's exactly how I am feeling today.

Yesterday my Christmas cards came in... I was excited to see them so of course I open them immediately when I get home.  When I opened them I found the detail card and it read "ENV = 0" in red.  I figured this meant there were no envelopes included in the package, and sure enough there were none in there.  I understand mistakes happen, but I even paid for an additional 5 in case I make a spelling error while addressing them.

I also learned that Shutterfly merged with Tiny Prints.... I'm assuming this was the cause of the error since I have experienced such poor quality and customer service with Shutterfly in the past.  According to the representative that I spoke with there were not supposed to be envelopes, yet, when I pulled up my order online I could see them.

I had new tires put on my car yesterday.  The dealership let me know that there were three options for my car that they carried in stock; Michelin, Yokohama, and Durrell.  I had the same model Michelin that they had in stock that were supposed to last 60k miles and here I was needing tires less than 35k into the life of the tire.  Of course I wasn't going to purchase the same model again so I went with the "next best" the Yokohama and as soon as I accelerate to get on HWY 40 yesterday my seat and steering wheel felt so rough, every millimeter change in the road I felt.

While I sat at the dealership while they inspected my car to see if the tires were properly mounted, balanced, and aligned.  I will say that I wasn't too thrilled to be missing work another day for something that should have been done the first time.

The "Master Tech" comes out and lets me know he has inspected everything and they took it on a road test and everything checked out, but he wanted to take it on the road with me in the car.  As soon as we hit 40 mph, I told him, I said, see, feel that?  He explained to me that the tires had thicker tread on them than my previous tires did, which means the tire will last longer but typically with a tire like this, it will have to wear down (approximately 500 miles) before I would notice a "smoother" ride.  He told me that with all Michelin tires you are pretty much paying for the brand name and you will never get the mileage that the tires are supposed to get, typically only 25k-30k.  Sigh.  The dealership is allowing me to drive another week and if I don't like the way the tires drive they can put the Michelin on there and I would only be responsible for the price difference in the tire.... but do I want to put the same tires I previously had for more money, but only get approximately 30k miles out of them?  Why can't they just  offer a smooth tire that lasts a decent amount of miles?

Alright, I know what I need for Christmas, a good luck charm!