Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"I had other priorities in the '60s than military service." -- Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States, on his lack of military experience during the Vietnam War. (From the Quotation of the day mailing list, submitted there by Paul Cezanne.)

This doesn't sound right.

I got up this morning and checked the FedEx web site: "9:16 am -- On FedEx vehicle for delivery". Since then, I've been awake and at home. My doorbell works. Noticing that it had gotten late, I checked the web site again at five minutes to six: "5:42 pm Delivered" Signed for by "XXX".

WTF? I've been here all day and no driver has rung my doorbell.

I called the 800 number for FedEx and got ahold of a human. She said, "Let me call the terminal," and put me on hold. After about eight minutes on hold, it rang through to a message that said, "The Home Delivery Business Office hours are ...". I left a message and called the 800 number again. This time I got handed off to a supervisor (without having to ask for that).

I described the problem, and my having been home all day and never having a driver ring or knock, and the supervisor said that she'd pass a message to the Baltimore office to contact the driver to see what he remembers about the delivery ... on Tuesday because it's a Tuesday-to-Saturday office. She also said that drivers for home delivery don't usually ring the doorbell, they just "release the package".

Ex-fucking-scuse me?! "Release the package"? I pointed out that I'm in the middle of the city, not in some quiet suburb, and that leaving a package on my front step is insane. She said that they usually do that, but the driver might have tried to tuck the package out of plain sight, behind something.

This is a row house. In front of my house, from the front wall to the curb of Lombard Street (not a lightly-travelled side street; Lombard Street) there is nothing but sidewalk. No lawn, no shrubbery, no planter, just sidewalk. There are steps leading down from my door, but they don't hide anything -- there's no behind or under, and beside is plainly visible to anyone who sets foot on this block. TELL ME the driver didn't just set the package on my front step and drive off without even ringing the doorbell! "What they usually do" or not, you cannot count that as 'delivered' in the middle of Baltimore! If they did that, it was gone before I looked out the front door again, and I've looked a bunch of times today.

At this point I'm hoping the driver screwed up in a merely careless, not actually insane, manner. I'm hoping it got delivered to the wrong street or the other side of town and that whoever lives wherever the package went speaks English and is willing to give the package back to the driver. But I won't even begin to get the next clue until Tuesday afternoon. On top of the rest of the frustration and worry, there's the wait. Dammit.

This isn't an amazingly expensive item, but it costs more than I can afford (it's a gift, the faster computer I mentioned in a previous entry, not something I could have bought for myself currently), so it counts as expensive from my perspective. I'd been looking forward to setting it up. I'd been looking forward to having that power available to ease the extra dose of computer-frustration I've been having this week hardware-wise. Now I get to spend the next couple of days wondering whether to be annoyed (mis-delivered and merely delayed) or angry (left on the street and stolen). And whether FedEx will take responsibility.

This is fucked up.

I'm disappointed and frustrated. And perplexed.