Real-Life Side Quests

If you've been following this blog, you probably know that I harbor a belief that we might be living in a simulation; i.e., a big, complicated video game. And, like in a video game a la The Legend of Zelda series, life seems to have both main story quests along with side quests/adventures.

For me, while my current main story quest is "Production of the Hold My Beer Film Project," I also recently completed a side quest called "Blender Replacement," which ended up being structured so much like a Zelda-style side quest that I found it quite uncanny.

It all started when, one day, I was informed by a company I had purchased a blender from that my particular model had a defect that could cause potentially severe injuries, and that I should destroy the unit (by taking it apart and cutting up a washer-style plastic ring, pictured above) and request a replacement part.

So I did. Quest complete? Not even close. During the replacement request process, I discovered that the replacement part could only be sent to a street address, not a P.O. box, despite the original unit having been delivered to my P.O. box. The problem with that is, due to various interdimensional vagaries*, I'm unable to receive mail at my street address unless certain specific conditions are met.

* the actual explanation is much more mundane and boring; I won't go into it here

So, I informed the blender company about this, and they assured me that the specific conditions would be met, so there shouldn't be any issues. Quest complete? Not even close.

As it turned out, the conditions were not met, and the replacement part ended up in a form of postal purgatory that required me to drive to a location several miles away and fill out a bunch of paperwork. I was told that doing so would lead to the replacement part being returned to the location and that I should come back in several days to pick it up.

Quest complete? Not even close.

I returned to the location several miles away several days later, but there was no replacement part to be found. As it turned out, filling out the paperwork did not result in the part being returned to the location; instead, it had been returned to the blender company.

So, I contacted the blender company and told them what had happened. After some back-and-forth, they told me that while they still could not re-send the replacement part to a P.O. box, they could send it to an alternate destination that would work for both of us. I agreed to this, and the delivery was finally, successfully received.

Quest complete.

Now, if you've played a Zelda game before, I'm sure you've encountered quests like this, where you do one thing that you think completes the quest, but instead, it leads you to having to do something else, which leads to something else, and so on. I find that thinking of these real-life adventures in that way makes the whole process more enjoyable than annoying (mostly, anyway). It's like a fun challenge. So, the next time you encounter a situation like this in your own life, hopefully this blog post will encourage you to view it in a similar, positive light.

P.S. To their credit, the blender company was very professional and responsive, and I ended up with a brand-new unit rather than just a replacement part. So, everything worked out for the best.