I am so happy to be filling out this form right now.

My original match for Awesomesocks retrieved my info on May 21. I sent socks off to my match and waited eagerly for my own. And I kept waiting. The little gift box was gray for weeks and weeks. I kept hoping it would turn to color, but it never did.

Finally, rematching came around. I confirmed that I had not received anything, and waited to be rematched. And...I kept waiting. From what I could tell from the statistics page, everyone had been rematched except me. I knew rematching was never guaranteed, but I was disappointed...how could I be the only one?! During all this, the person I sent socks too had never posted that they received them, so I figured the whole exchange was a bust for me. I had proof of mailing, so I got the exchange credit back, but I wasn't happy.

When Arbitrary Day rolled around, I signed up for the Plus version. I wanted to participate, but I wanted a little better chance at not getting screwed this time. Arbitrary Day came and went, the exchange was great, and I forgot about Awesomesocks.

But just a couple of days ago, I got email from redditgifts. "Whoa, orangered in email!" it enthused - I figured my postcard match was up! But no...IT WAS MY AWESOMESOCKS REMATCH. Six months later, I suddenly had a rematch!! The anonymous redditor said they thought I had been waiting a very long time for socks, and they didn't know how long shipping to Japan would take, and would I like a Kindle book from my wishlist instead? Utterly stunned, I replied and said yes, absolutely! A day went by with nothing - and then it happened.

I got a Kindle gift email. It was James Clavell's Gai-Jin, with an accompanying note saying "here's one of my favourite books from one of the greatest writers and I hope you haven't read it." Whoa, one of my rematcher's favorite books was one on my wishlist?! SUPER AWESOME! And indeed, I am thrilled to read it. But even better than reading the book was that orangered in my email. Somebody was still out there, thinking of me.

Now I have two gift boxes. One is gray and says "retrieved May 21," the other is color and says "shipped Sept 21." The joy that colored gift box gives me is better than any socks could have been months ago. :)