It seems purty ridiculous to compare the Smithsonian's online shopping with Elderly.

WHY???? Mail orders are mail orders, whether placed with a large or small company. It still shouldn't take five days to process a simple prepaid order for something as small as instrument strings. They could be put in an envelope and mailed. What's the big deal?? Further more, they don't provide you with an option on their site to contact them by e-mail, probably because they know they'd be innudated with complaints about their lousy service. When I called this morning just to ask why it took so long to process a simple order a very snotty young lady told me it always take 5 to 7 days to ship any order. If the business I work for was that incosiderate of our customers we probably wouldn't be around any more.