Widget Woes

Have you ever dealt with a government bureaucracy? I mean without pulling your hair out, gnashing your teeth, and finally wanting to take someone's life, maybe even your own!! Just kidding . . . but it can be a real ordeal, can't it?!

I've just gone through this concerning a particular Widget that I was told could be funded by Uncle Sam because it was an important part of a particular program, (mainly because I said it was). So far, so good. I found a way to purchase these Widgets through a friend because her organization wanted the same Widgets and we placed an order together. Now mind you, I'm not selling these Widgets for profit or anything like that, they are given away as instructional materials. Because of the size of our order we were able to get a substantial discount, so of course we were all over saving the government money, right?

The trouble began when going with my Widgets back to the government office to get reimbursed with a receipt that says it was so many dollars, I'm told, oops, you didn't get that through a government approved vendor. (I actually got them directly from the author.) It is indeed the very Widget that we need, at a very good price, so common sense tells me that this a good thing.

Common sense is often nowhere to be found in government offices . . .