The Phantom of the Opera DOESN'T HAVE PIERCED EARS

No. The Phantom of the Opera does NOT have pierced ears.

But if he did, he would wear only the most tasteful and elegant earrings. He would certainly not wear one huge gawdy earring with a large color photo of the Opera house on one side and his biography on the other. He wouldn't. It would be undignified.

But if, perchance, the Phantom of the Opera DID, on a crazy whim, decide that just ONCE he would wear a huge Opera house earring with his biography inscribed upon it, HE WOULD NOT WEAR IT IN HIS RIGHT EAR. He would wear it in his left. Because he spent the whole novel chasing Christine. Not Raoul.

Not that he would wear it at all, mind you. He wouldn't. But if he did. Which, as I've said, he wouldn't.

Which is why I was awfully upset to open my email today and find that my 250 Eriks in China were ready to ship, complete with their glossy biographical hangtags attached--RIGHT THROUGH THEIR RIGHT FREAKING EARS!!!

So I am frustrated.

So are some folks in China who arrived bright at early at work this Tuesday morning (yeah. It's already 8:30 a.m. in China, I'm told) to learn that after attaching 250 Phantom of the Opera tags to 250 Phantom ears they get to spend this shift detaching 250 Phantom of the Opera tags from 250 Phantom ears and promptly reattaching said tags to 250 Phantom coattails.

Fellow fans, I love Erik as much (or more than) the next gal, but I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I tell you that I will be happy when this whole Phantomy mess is over.

Dear Phantom friends, this delays Erik's shipping by yet another day. I regret to inform you that it is already Tuesday in China. Things are not looking good for Erik arriving in time for me to ship him to you in time for him to make it to you by Christmas. Sorry. I tried.

To make matters worse, I screwed up royally on the shipping charges. I don't know how it happened because I did it carefully, and I asked my husband to check my work. We did it multiple times. We went to USPS.com. Erik weighs about a half a pound. We estimated the box Erik will ship in weighs about a half a pound also. That means with packing material, Erik will weigh just a little bit more than a pound. So you put 1 pound and some number of ounces into the weight boxes at USPS.com.... and you choose the ship from zip code (78213) and the ship to zip code (I used 90210, just to be funny) and it gives you prices. Prices...! Like $7.50 and $7.33. Wait a second...! What happened here? Somehow, I did this once before and was quoted $2. and some change... something like 2.34... and then the box cost me another .42... and then the packing material and tape was a little more... no worries! I called it $3.50 for shipping and figured everything was fine. Well, I guess I'm going to lose a little on every single Erik. I mean, not lose, lose, because technically what I lose on the shipping I might make up for on Erik himself... but then, since not even half of them have sold, I'm going to have 192 darling Eriks too many, the value of which, while vast, is... not... immediately... tangible. And such. Yeah. What really gets me about the whole thing, though, is not the loss of the money. I went into this with eyes wide open knowing full well that to break even would be a good thing and to make a couple of bucks nothing short of a miracle. No, what gets me, what really frustrates me, what completely and totally #^*&!^& @!$$&$ me off is that I messed up. I mean, I HAD to have typed something wrong on the USPS website for this to have happened. And I just can't BELIEVE how STUPID I must have been to have NOT #@*&!@& noticed that!!