Unsigned, Unsealed, Undelivered, (Unemployed)

My blood feud with UPS is now extended to include FedEx as well.

On Sunday night, the video card in my husband's computer went out. I'm not exactly sure what that is or what it does, but he seemed to be pretty upset about it. After a visit to the Apple store to confirm the problem, he ordered a new part, breathing a sigh of relief that it was covered under warranty.*

The part was scheduled to be delivered this morning, and we'd been told they'd require a signature, so I steeled myself for a mad dash to the front door. In my experience, you have about 2.2 seconds to open the door before these folks stick a post-it to your door and high-tail it away in their trucks. The window in my home office faces the front of the house, so every time I heard what sounded like a delivery truck outside, I checked it out so I could be sure to reach the door in time. As it happened, though, FedEx never came to my door.

Around 10:15, I saw a FedEx truck pull up to the house next door. The driver got out, took a package to the door, then left. The garage was blocking my view, so I couldn't see if she rang the bell or if anyone was home, but in any case, I thought it was strange that FedEx would deliver something to my neighbor's house and leave without delivering my package too. I called my husband and had him track the package, and the report said it had been left on the front porch. Sighing, I headed over to my neighbor's house, where a nice lady handed me the box and told me that the delivery person had not asked for a signature; she simply rang the bell, dropped the package and left, in a ding-dong-ditch delivery.

So to sum up, FedEx was supposed to deliver a package to my house and get a signature upon delivery. What they did was deliver a package to my neighbor's house and not get a signature. The only thing I can really say they did right is take the box to the nice neighbor's house, and not the house with the juvenile delinquents, who the other day turned around our downspout so water would flow into our garage instead of into the yard.

Does anyone know if the Pony Express is still in business?

*This is very important these days especially, because I was laid off a month ago. I haven't blogged about it yet because I can't think of too much to say about it that's funny or poignant, and I've been too busy looking for jobs. But if you are interested in my thoughts on laid-off life, check out my new Twitter page, twitter.com/findyourgrail.