All Fired Up

I used to live in Lafayette, but moved away last year. While we were visiting, my mom took my two kids in to paint some pottery. They painted two pieces each, for a total of 4 pieces. Two were for fun and the other two were Mothers Day presents for me. The shop said that they would mail the pieces for a fee. My mom arranged for the two pieces that were for fun to be mailed as soon as they were ready.
First of all, it took forever to get the first package. They were painted around the 10^th of March and we didn’t get our package until April 17^th. Second, when we opened the package, the Fairy was just sitting on the top broken. It wasn’t wrapped in paper or bubble wrap or anything, just placed in the box. The spiderman box was wrapped nicely and was fine. My daughter was heartbroken and sobbing because she had worked so hard on painting the fairy.
My mom went into the store to pick up the other pieces– a heart plaque and a mug. The owner personally handed her the package. Before leaving, my mom took the pieces out to look at them, and the heart plaque was broken and had been wrapped up and placed in the bag. Rather than upsetting my son that his piece was broken, my mom was going to recreate it (kind of like switching for a new goldfish). They didn’t have the same plaque in stock so they did finally special order the same plaque, but they wouldn’t return calls and it took so long to order the plaque that my mom couldn’t go complete the piece until a month later. Because of that delay, she had to mail the package express mail to get it to me before Mothers Day, which cost $ 44! I wouldn’t have cared if it was late, but my children would have been upset if the gifts they made didn’t arrive on time, because they spent hours painting them.
The owner was terrible to deal with and wouldn’t return phone calls. One time my mom called and an employee said that the owner was there and to hold on a second. My mom could hear the owner in the background say that she didn’t want to talk to her and to tell her she wasn’t in!
In all of her trips in and out of the shop to get this taken care of, my mom has seen several other broken pieces and several other customers upset that their pieces were broken. I understand that these things happen in business, but the owner doesn’t know how to handle customers and provide good service. I would personally go somewhere else, but if you do decide to go, check your pieces very carefully before you leave the store!