What would you do?

I hosted a Wine Tasting party a few weeks back and had a very nice turnout. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and also ordered quite a bit of wine.

One person in particular ordered a bottle of wine and accessories for a Christmas gift for her neighbor. Now, this person lives about 55 miles from me and I don't see her often. I did have plans to see her the following weekend, so she ordered the wine with the thoughts I would bring it that day. Unfortunately, that weekend was crazy and I barely made it out of the house with underwear, let alone her wine. I apologized and asked if we could make arrangements for her and my husband to meet sometime in the coming weeks to give her the wine. She agreed and I said, let me know what will work best and I will make sure Pete can accommodate. (She and my husband work about 6 miles from each other).
Every time since this initial conversation, I have asked her about making these arrangements and they were never acknowledged. With Christmas fast approaching and still not a word, I sent her an email last Monday...never heard back. I called her Tuesday morning at 7:30 and asked her to call so we could iron out these details, as the week was soon coming to an end. Finally, on Thursday evening she called. I asked about delivering the wine or about when she could meet Pete...nothing! She was having a type of Holiday Party at a friends house that Saturday, perhaps she thought I would bring it then...even know I told her and emailed her I wasn't coming to this party.
Anyway, this brings us to last evenings phone call. When she called, the first thing I said is "what are we going to do about this wine"? I told her my Mom and sister were coming to visit on Saturday and they could bring it to her then. (my Mom lives very close to her). She said "you know it's for Christmas, so I would need before Thursday". I told her, well let's see if we could work sometime out for tomorrow. Then it started to become difficult. I asked if Pete could meet her at lunch.. "no, I don't take a lunch". Can he meet you after work "no, we probably close early at 3pm due to the snow and I have to get my son". Can he meet you before work "most likely not, because I don't know when I will get there because of the snow". Then her statement to me was "Just return it"! Return it? Was she kidding? This wine has been sitting at my house for her for a month and now she wants me to return it? Why did she even order it for her friend, if it wasn't really that special of a gift? It made no sense.

She abruptly ended the call with "kat, I'll call you later tonight". Ok...let's wait to the very last minute, that makes sense.

So I called the hostess from the party and was told "no, it's not possible to exchange the wine unless it was rancid". Also, she was having a difficult time dealing with the parent company and having a hard time being paid herself and felt a refund would be impossible the accessory. I then called Pete and asked what to do. He asked if and when she could meet and I said, well she's making it really hard. She couldn't leave even for 10 min. to meet him, she couldn't meet before work or after. He finally said "F" it ... we'll just give her the money, it's obviously not important to her to get this gift, so we'll just take care of it". I told him that is would be $42 and he's like, we'll just take it from the money his parents gave the girls for Christmas. This made me sad, as I was going to use this money to pay for their gymnastics.

Now, I should mention I have been friends with this person for a LONG time and thought we had a very good relationship, however, this situation is proving to be very challenging. It's almost making me question this friendship.

I called her back about an hour after the first call and told her that Pete had a meeting at 8:30 and 1pm and if she couldn't leave, he just wasn't sure he could make it back to work in time for these meetings. (She works across from a huge mall and so does he...it's like a mad house). I proceeded to tell her I would send a check and she was like "fine". I told her we would just re-gift the wine and keep the accessory. She then was like "well, I can take the accessory and you can just send me the money for the wine". WHAT?? That doesn't make sense. I was like, you know what I don't know when I will see, so I'm just going to keep it all and send you the money to get it over and done with. I'll drop it in the mail Saturday.

She was like "oh, don't worry about it, send it when you can". Send it when I can? Let's see every month I'm in the red, couldn't buy her kid a present or most of family gifts this Christmas, but, now I am going to purchase $42 of wine crap because she didn't bother to an effort to help me get this wine to her.

I don't know how to feel about this. Pissed, hurt, nothing...not sure! All I know it the whole thing seemed to unfold weird and I don't know why. I should also mention, this is the same person who would be willing to drive 100 miles to pick up something if need be, so obviously the importance of giving this wine to her neighbor wasn't really the case. It seems like she didn't want to be bothered with it for some reason and just figured I would take care of returning it and it would be over and done with....well it's not!

My advice givers have all said "don't pay her" or "you are nicer than me". I don't know what to do in this situation. I don't have the money for this wine, yet, don't want to start a big tado over it either. I should also mention that Pete and I didn't purchase anything from this party because we didn't have the extra money to spend.... well, I guess I will now !

I really don't know what to do, but, I do know I am unhappy right now thinking of the situation. The sad thing, I don't think she even noticed I was upset or how she made me feel.

Any thoughts, suggetions, advice?

HO, HO, HO!