Wednesday, January 4, 2012

On the Return of My UPS Delivery Guy

I order a lot of things from Amazon. There are certain times of the year (Christmas, birthdays, and whenever I've come up with a new project--writing or otherwise) that it's not unusual for a new package to come several times a week.

Wow, that just makes me sound like a crazy shopaholic, which I'm really not. I swear.

Anyway, I've been spoiled since we moved to the desert, and I've got a nice understanding with the UPS delivery guy. He always rings my doorbell and places my package in my hands, or if it's heavy brings it into the house and places it out of the way. If I'm not home, he'll leave the package at the backdoor of my house so it's not visible from the road.

Recently, however, this stopped happening.

My UPS guy had disappeared, and in his place were a handful of unexceptional delivery guys who'd drop the package on the doorstep (and if they even bothered to ring the bell, ran away like the hounds of Hell were on their heels). Sometimes, the packages weren't even making it all the way to the door, but would be left half way down the walkway, as if by stepping closer than one hundred feet they would be guaranteed an early demise. I'm really not that scary. At least not usually, and rarely to the UPS guys.

This change was undeniably annoying to me.

Plus, I was a little concerned for my friendly guy in brown. Each time there was a new guy, I wondered if maybe my guy in brown had retired. It wasn't like he was a young guy. I'd venture to guess he is anywhere between 60-70 years old. Though, I admit I'm horrible with correctly telling age.

It made me sad to think about.

When you live in the middle of nothing, and you're not exactly the social butterfly, seeing the same delivery person is like seeing an old friend.

Don't knock familiarity.

Especially with the sanctity of Amazon packages. They're like the Holy Grail, Excalibur, and the lost city of Atlantis all wrapped up in a wonderful brown box. ( I really love Amazon. Do you think there's a twelve step program for that?)

Then the other day, I was pleasantly surprised when the doorbell rang, and there he was. Huge Amazon box in hand. It turns out he was on vacation, and the other guys being only temporary, were uncomfortable getting too close because around here they've been getting attacked. (By dogs, not just the lonely ladies who normally attack them because of those brown shorts--and the Amazon packages they carry.)

Aside from the disgust with people purposely setting their dogs loose to attack the UPS and USPS workers (Where is the world heading, I ask). All is once again right with my little slice of the world.

What are your experiences with UPS, USPS, FedEx, etc?