Chaos from order

At last we divest ourselves of the "spare" copy of Kompass Ruritania that's been waiting for return for about six months. This was part of Reggie's legacy: he was a fiend for special offers, often buying things we didn't actually want because "it was on offer." In this case he decided to buy a copy of Kompass Ruritania for a customer with business connections there (yes, that's a customer) and got on the 'phone to the company for a price. Two problems:

We're contractually obliged to buy stock from the book suppliers that won the tender for supply, so we can't buy direct from the company; and

Reggie somehow managed to complete a telephone order for the directory. Which caused a problem because the Acquisitions team ordered a copy through the proper channels and then had a second copy delivered to them without so much as an order number.

Reggie was all for keeping the second copy "as it's our mistake." Mary tartly pointed out that it wasn't "our" mistake and the one that hadn't been ordered was going back. It's no wonder his wife doesn't allow him to go shopping on his own.