Ling Doll Mystery

Ok...so, I wanted to get Emma the talking Ling doll for Easter. I was so excited to buy this for her, as is says about 30 phrases in both English and Mandarin Chinese. However, it is rather pricey. Originally, I wanted to order it from Toys R Us, as someone on the FKI site mentioned they were clearanced out. Well, they ended up discontinuing them, so I kept watching various sites and one day, I came across a free shipping deal if I ordered it from Target. So, I ordered the doll on March 12th and figured it would get here in plenty of time for Easter. I kept getting e-mails telling me that it was on back order and the delivery date would be later than the original date they gave me. Meanwhile, Easter Sunday came and went and the following Sunday I got an e-mail from Target letting me know that the doll would be delivered between June....yes, JUNE, 2nd-6th and if I wanted to cancel the order, I could. So, I opted to cancel it and ordered the doll through China Sprout instead.

China Sprout gave me a delivery date of April 4th. So, Thursday came and I was really excited when the UPS truck pulled up....finally, the Ling doll for Emma! Well, up walks the UPS guy with two (2) boxes. One was marked China Sprout and the other was marked with a return address of "Paul" at Global Shipping (out of WA).

I opened the box from China Sprout first. There was cute little Ling, all ready to speak Mandarin to us! Low and behold, I pushed the button and little Ling said a few phrases and then all I could hear is "RrrrrrrrrrrRRrrrrrrrr"....gone....Nice...eh? Next, I opened the box from Global Shipping....Ling #2!! Surely she would have some words for us! Pushed her button and she would only say two of the thirty phrases. Great.....this must be some sort of joke. Well, after a few battery changes, we were able to get one of the dolls working, but now I am left with a second doll that does not work and I have no clue who it came from.

The box was not marked with a Target label anywhere....and I even called to Target and they assured me that the order had been canceled and no doll had been shipped from them. So, I decided to call "Paul" from Global Shipping (the phone number listed next to the return address). I think that this is a truking company of some sort. The men I spoke with must have thought I was a nut case....they kept putting me on hold and trying to help figure out the mystery. Finally, they put me in touch with "a guy named Paul" that works there and even he had no idea why their address would have been on my box.

So...the defective Ling doll sits in a box in my mudroom and the mystery continues. Meanwhile, the talking Ling sits on Emma's dresser as Emma could really care less about the doll. She'd rather play with her little 1 inch baby from the My Loving Family dollhouse that her cousins handed down to her!