This fall I visited my sister Janet in Pittsburgh, and heard her rave about Shearer's Kettle Cooked Salt & Pepper Potato Chips - which she had at the bar at the Duquesne Club. Jan throws no bouquets; she doesn't rave about anything. She loved the chips. I love her. I ordered a box of three bags of your chips on-line: that was on December 11,2021.

Imagine, three 8 oz. Bags of potato chips for $23.49, and then I paid another $12.99 to express ship them to Pittsburgh for Christmas. "Mind blowing prices", indeed. Check my math, but that's $1.52/oz., no? And December 11th to the 24th spans thirteen days – almost two weeks. And Capstone / TrueGether sells for a food company devoted to freshness, no? I could get real Japanese Wasabi paste delivered from Kyoto for $1.52 an ounce. Beautiful women in Kimonos, using their delicate hands to crush the root with mortar and pestle, vacuum sealed in an attractive little clay pot, and rushed to Kansai daily for delivery to the US. Wasabi in the old style, fit for the finest sushi – delivered to my door from Kyoto [6,651 airmiles] for a buck fifty-two. Again, check me.

Here I sit – in Wexford, PA -- on Boxing day +1. No chips, no ‘splanation, no ‘pology. Just a loop de loop "tracking email" from the V. P. in charge of happy-talk - that congratulates me for my purchase 17 DAYS AGO. That email tells me that the Chips I purchased thru Capstone Suppliers (in Los Angeles [2,641 land miles]) via TrueGether (also in LA) are confirming my order and sending Shearer's potato chips made in Massillon, Ohio [100 land miles] to my family in Wexford, Pa. You guessed it, those bracketed distances measure the miles from the aforesaid locations to Wexford. So, my sister's chips – if they ever get here -- will have at traveled at least 5,182 miles. That a rider on horseback could have made the delivery leg of that journey in less time than it has taken so far, says something doesn't it? In point of fact, I could have walked to Massillon to get the chips and made it back to Jan's for Christmas and saved a day. That says something too.

It says that someone needs asskicking. The person at TrueGather who gave me tracking information that is completely useless (USPS could not decipher it) should get an asskicking. And who is the genius that picked USPS - God love'em, no good asskicking there, but the epsilon semi-moron who decided to use the postal service - "when it absolutely positively has to be there over night" -- needs some anal probing with a size 11. Capstone should reimburse whatever Shearer's paid them for the month of December, and should make sure that its relationship manager gets two (2) asskickings - one from her boss and one from Shearer's. Then the idiot at Shearer's who hired his brother-in-law [or equivalent] to manage sales and distribution should he asskicked, then (both) fired. And whoever his boss is should beg that the only thing that happens to him is an asskicking so severe that he is unable to sit down until next Christmas. His boss should receive an asskicking that consumes a round trip to Kyoto. And all three COOs should bend over too. If old man Shearer lives, he would push me aside to be first in line, but I'd be happy to do the job.