Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Sick Of This Crap

I live in the woods.

If you look really close, you can see about as much
of my house as is visible through the trees.

I've wanted to live in the woods all my life. Last time I looked, it has not yet been made illegal by the Great Codependent Authorities Who Know What's Best to live in the woods. I wildcraft medicinal herbs, watch monarch caterpillars munch on milkweed, and delight in the chaotic exuberance of wildness. What others see as order and artificially structured beauty makes me feel as if I'm being slowly suffocated.

I also have a privacy fence and a locked gate. My property is posted. I lost patience with trespassers and vandals many years ago, and it was a sheriff's deputy answering one of my calls back then who first told me I should get a gun.

I used to have my personal orders shipped to my office, but that's not allowed any more. So I have a nice big resin "deck box" outside the fence, right next to the locked gate, that is clearly marked PARCELS.

Then how come the friggin' UPS drivers can't put my damn parcels in the PARCELS box??

Oh, the folks at UPS agree that a box marked PARCELS is a perfectly acceptable way to receive deliveries when you're not home. They apologize profusely and the delivery is usually made the next day. They assure me it won't happen again.

Until the next time I'm supposed to get a package.

When I got home today, the delivery-du-jour had been sent back to the depot. UPS promised somebody will call me by 10:00 am tomorrow, and my package will be delivered. And they apologized and said it won't happen again. Yeah, right.

Since when is having your house visible from the road and allowing strangers direct access to your front door a requirement to order a book from Amazon, or a holster from LA Police Gear?

5 comments:

Tango Juliet said...

You are on so many lists! :)

Anonymous said...

Because then they'd have to THINK.

Linoge said...

Hell, I cannot even get the UPS deliveryman to leave my packages at my apartment's office more than 50% of the time, and that office has an actual, signed agreement we have to sign (and that gets sent to UPS) allowing the office to receive those very packages.

You really think they are going to catch on to a box? Erf. Good luck with that :).

Warthog said...

I think your first failure point was in assuming they can read.

Hecate said...

Woo-hoo! I actually found the parcel in the PARCELS box when I got home today! That's the very first time they got it (sorta) right.

On their second attempt.

Dare we hope?