Welcom

Here's where I toss out my words - like words in the wind. Sometimes putting stuff out on the internet can feel like that. Hope you can catch the breeze once in awhile.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Special Delivery

"I'm sorry we don't ship to P.O. Boxes. Can you give me your physical address," says the person taking my phone order.
I sigh. "Well, I could give you my physical address, but I know you won't ship to it. I'll give you . . . ."
"Fed Ex will ship anywhere." Heavy emphasis on anywhere. This person has obviously watched CastAway too many tmes.
"They won't ship here," I say full of the knowledge gleaned from approximately 287 such encounters in the past fifteen years.
Sigh from order-taking-person. "Just give me the address and I'll decide that."
"Fine." I rattle off the legal land description - the physcial address of a quarter section of land that is approximately twenty miles from the nearest town of 4,000 and approximately thirteen miles from the nearest hamlet of about 100. Where our post office is. And I hear the pause that I always hear whenever I do this. I wait, letting this sink in. It's petty of me. I know. I just don't like being treated with condescension. I've lived with teenagers. Now that the kids are all grown up condescension is no longer welcome in my home. In all my years of ordering online and over the phone, no delivery company in the entire English speaking world has EVER brought ANYTHING to my door yet. Not UPS, not Canada Post, not Purolator, not FedEx, not DHL. None of these friendly delivery people has ever driven the long miles down our gravel roads to pull up to my house with a smile and a package. Nor will they. I realize that most of these ordering places are located in the city. I understand that many of these ordering people think that the country they drive through to get from one city to another is simply there for their inconvenience. I would like these ordering type people to check out Google Earth and look at the endless amounts of roadway that cut through all the country between cities and realize that people live on those roads. And that delivery companies will most probably NOT go that extra mile to bring a package to my door. I don't have time to educate this person, however, and I'm not patient enough to try to explain that not everyone in the world lives on a paved street with street lights outside their house and that the only way I can get high speed internet is to plunk a satellite dish on the top of my house because cable companies won't drag themselves this far out either. Do you sense some frustration? You are very astute. Trouble is now that I HAVE high speed internet, I can order stuff online even faster. And every time I do I have to explain once again why I'm getting these people to deliver their stuff to the store in our small town. Where, by the way, the post office is located.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

don't you just hate that! I guess it's one of those things when you live 'out in the country'. OK, you don't send to PO Boxes or legal land descriptions so here is a street address of the people we work with in Barrhead. Then I get asked for the postal code of all things. Doesn't that beat all eh? Someday, maybe if we squawk enough we'll get door to door delivery. The silly DHL truck drives within a 1/4 mile of our house every single day!
love, j

Elsie Montgomery said...

I wonder if Bill Gates moved to the farm just beside you, would he get delivery to the door? Keep writing those books and when you are totally famous... (heehee)

btw, I used to be Elsie Montgomery and had to change my blogger display name for a very good reason explained on my blog - www.livingmyfaith.blogspot.com

Brenda Coulter said...

You are so cute when you're cranky.

Hey, the blog's looking great. Like the photos a lot.

<3<3<3

Dr. Raymond A. Blacketer said...

Dear Carolyne Eh,
You have to come to terms with the fact that you don't really live anywhere. Or that you really live nowhere. Of course, given that you have high-speed internet and I don't, I'm having a hard time, as someone who also does not live anywhere, mustering up much sympathy. One thing you must certainly do when ordering cool toys and such from the USA is to avoid UPS like the proverbial plague. They charge silly brokerage fees, and such, like matching brown truck and uniform fee, and the gravel road depreciation fee, etc. My question is: Don't you have your mail delivered to Neerlandia? Or is it some other non-locale where you pick up your mail? Won't FedEx deliver to our common fictional address, 50th Street and 50th Avenue?
With compassionate concern,
Dominee Randy

Gina Conroy said...

Too funny! Well, maybe not! I live a rocks throw from everything and anything convenient, wouldn't it be a shock if someone actually delivered to your door!