Recently, my mother came to Seattle to be with me and take care of me, when I checked out of the hospital after a successful surgery. Towards the end of my first week home, my husband returned to work and while I spent my days semi-drugged and taking naps, my mother had more time on her hands than she thought that she would. She re-discovered the Internet.

Of course, she started with what she knew - purses. Whenever I wandered by our home office, my mother would call me in to see all the new sites she had discovered from all over the globe that featured handbags. Now, my mother does run her own website(www.pursestories.com), but she is certainly not computer-, tech-, or web-savvy in the least, and I was moved to laughter so many times during those days. This would not have been remarkable at all, except my recent surgery left me with stitches under my upper lip that pulled tightly and with pain when I laughed, even smiled too broadly.

She fell in love with one purse in particular. It was a vintage Koret handbag. It was featured on a site run by a woman who sells vintage bags out of her Chelsea apartment in New York City: www.lapochette.com. I think the story behind the bag was as much a selling feature as the bag itself. But it was too expensive to buy on impulse and my sister continually reminds my mother that “she will never be able to retire if she doesn’t stop spending her money on frivolous items.” So the Koret bag went unpurchased, but was visited every day of my mother’s stay.

The day before my mother left Seattle, my husband and I talked about the Koret bag. He had always been in favor of my mother buying it (he is the consummate consumer) and he agreed that it would be the perfect thank you slash birthday gift for my mom. Later that day, while my mother was on a walk in our neighborhood, I logged in, clicked through, and bought the Koret bag.

After she arrived home, my mother emailed me to find the name of the website where she had seen the Koret bag. She knew she had written it down somewhere, but could not find it on any of the scraps of paper covered with web addresses that she'd been collecting. I was worried that she would find the site and see that the purse would say “SOLD” and she would be on to me, so I was evasive. And, as I have mentioned, she is an unsavvy surfer and probably could not find the site again.

Two weeks later, the Koret bag I'd purchased for her had not arrived from New York. I emailed Elisa, the owner of La Pochette, who promptly replied with a UPS tracking number and the comment that while I should have received it by now, perhaps the Memorial Day holiday slowed the delivery down. I waited a couple more days and then I called UPS. Strangely, they had no record of the package after it left New York now almost three weeks earlier. I should contact the seller and have them send a replacement.

I explained that while I could probably receive a refund, the item in the package was a one of a kind and a replacement was not possible and it was a birthday gift for my mother and I really wanted that particular piece. So please, could they help me?

So the kind lady at UPS filed a report and said that they would do their best to find the package but it could be anywhere.

What could I do? Nothing.

I had some errands to do that afternoon, and when I returned home, goodness gracious! a package was on my doorstep! The Koret bag!! It had made it. There was no record of the package from the time it was picked up and scanned in Chelsea to the time when it was delivered and scanned at my doorstep, but it had made the cross-country journey unscathed.

And now my mother’s Koret bag will be sent to her in Texas (certified & insured) with the purse story that was created with it.

Thank you for everything, mom and happy birthday!