Missing Parts

I'm not going to go into why I thought buying two Lego "Fire Brigade" sets was a good investment.  Actually, the one was an investment.  Unfortunately, reaping the benefits of that investment precludes opening the box and playing with it before I sell it again, which means that I had to buy a second set to play with.  Somewhere in this I am supposed to at least break even.  Then comes the missing parts.

I didn't think this would happen...kind of assume all this stuff is packed by robots and/or an assembly line with little human intervention.  TURNS OUT that batch "39R1" is missing an entire box of pieces.  I realized this after spending an hour looking for pieces that aren't there.  What can I say?  They are small pieces.  And there's a lot of them.  And I was watching Ghostbusters II.  I had watched Ghostbusters earlier in the evening while assembling a different Lego-related investment.  That one went much smoother.  All the pieces were there.

I had been psyching myself up to design my own fire hall-like elaborate Lego set that would bear uncanny resemblence to a certain movie franchise, but now that enthusiasm is starting to deflate because I have to figure how to deal with this situation.

This all started when I was minding my own business at work...busily not spending huge amounts of money on toys, when Luke called to tell me of wonderful savings opportunities at the Lego store.  Ten percent of $700 is higher than 10% of $0.  I have to do my budget tomorrow.  I have Legos that I can't assemble spread all over my table.  That will make a great impression if any of the girls I meet at salsa want to come back to my place for coffee that I don't actually have.  Oh who am I kidding?  That never happens in Seattle.

[Edit]
The Lego company appears to be unaware of the problem.  I have to go home and match over 1000 small plastic pieces against the list of what I'm supposed to have.  Fuck, dude.