After being mailed from Denver on July 7, then traveling the midsection of America while trying to find Palestine, Texas, Elaine’s eBay purchase—and our patience while trying to reel in an old but working IBM Selectric II—came to an end overnight.
eBay—to their credit—came through with a refund of just over $200.
Honestly, we will probably give up. Elaine said, “I don’t really need it.” And both of us have learned over nearly eight decades apiece that sometimes, when you reach for something and the Universe repeatedly takes it back—going so far as to attempt a Denver delivery—it is best to take the hint, flow like water, and move on.
Still, I hate to admit it: I was actually enjoying the adventure from a lazy summer writer’s perspective. There was always something new going on with it, it made for an easy story, and—saddest of all—lots of us have been there.
OK, I can take the hint, too.
Back with a real ShopTalk Sunday article tomorrow.
~Ure
My USPS service has been good in recent years. They are good for mail and light packages. My regular carriers are the best.
UPS and Fedex are better for heavier packages, but I have intermittant problems with both. Fedex was using a hispanic subcontractor to deliver, who either refused to deliver or threw my packages in the ditch, and claimed they were delivered. Fedex is back to using directs for delivery so their performance is back up to standard. The hispanic subcontractor’s behavior was consistent with racial hate based vigilante stalking. Delivery guys are frequently vigilante CI’s trolling for victims. The worst ambush I have survived to date was initiated by a delivery which got dropped shipped from outside the US. I counted federal, state and multiple locals present at that incident. Never got an explanation or apology. No policing of hate crimes involving CI’s.
My USPS local delivery is great… once it gets to the local post office. FedEx uses contract drivers who either cannot find my rural address, or don’t give a sh!t, mark stuff as ‘delivered’ but nowhere to be found. UPS is fairly good, but expensive as hell.
We were all enjoying the travel adventures of Elaine’s typewriter. I was starting to think it had been delivered to Palestine in the Middle East. Getting it back in one piece would have been a challenge.
Naw – not in America. All I would ne34ed to do is sign off on 23 unvetted “support persons” and it would be a slam. You live with a Carney – we live with something else, again.
All mail people forgot about Mercury Retrograde its exactly what happens.
My husband, having trouble with his hearing aid, ordered a new set nearly a week ago. According to checking USPS tracking, it is now caught in the Indianapolis void vortex. I could drive to where it’s likely located in 3 hours time, but USPS will see a delivery date around the end of August. LoL.
Must be keeping company with the Lipitor shipped on July 11. Shipped from Indianapolis and then entered the void.
Perhaps they mistook it for an illegal vial of greasy kid’s stuff?
I suppose I should stop complaining about my USPS black hole transiting the Pacific. It may take a long time, but at least it doesn’t bounce back out to circle the countryside.
In your case a “circular transit” would probably be to Guam, Mariana Islands, Oahu, (with maybe a stop over in Long Beach) and back to Guam so as to start the circle a second time!! That would make Georges/Elaines typewriter traveling adventures look like those of a LAZY traveler.
That actually HAS happened, come to think of it. Everything to Hawaii comes thru Oahu, as Honolulu is the ‘Regional Distribution Center’. But now I recall I have had two different packages come out of the untracked ‘black hole’ to land in Guam. Guam dutifully held it for a week, then sent it back to SanFran, where it again got held for weeks before dispatch to the Honolulu exit portal. Those packages took two months.
George, I live near Denver. Call the Post Office next time the package hits Denver and tell them to hold it for me. I drive up and get it. It has been a long couple of years on the farm so it would be great to take a road trip and bring the Selectric to Texas. No scans involved.
BTW, did you ever talk to your local Postmaster?
An amazingly generous ofer! However, since I have my money back – allowing me to fund another writing topics – it won’t be used – this time. As for talk to my local postmistress? She would be far too busy for a mere mortal such as me…
The secret to using USPS parcel services is to always use your 9-digit Zip Code. The 5-digit gets the parcel into your State Representative’s district; the 9-digit is a digital representation of your unique physical address. It’s like having a totally-redundant backup of your address, on the parcel.
I only have difficulty with Post Orifice parcels when a sender refuses to use the 9-digit Zip: 5-digit Zip = a loss of about 3% of my parcels. 9-digit Zip = a loss of zero…
Ray, thank you for advising to use the 9 number zip code. Just got a text from our daughter that she is going to send a package when she gets to Albania, before she heads to the 2020 Nomad Games. She sent a box in April to lighten her backpack from Tokyo, that arrive without issue.
George…thank you for sharing your shipping challenge (and all that you & everyone shares)
I’m still have shipping trauma from tracking a box of two Morocco rugs our daughter sent from Spain while on a college grad trip 3 yrs ago. Since I don’t speak Spanish, my 95 yr young mother was translating at 1am! The box travel to a few US cities, was held up in customs, returned to Spain, where traveled the country. A noticed said it was lost and we let it go.
Until a new notice months later said it could pick it up. Our family happened to be in Europe for the Christmas Markets & she was able to fly Brussels/ Barcelona RT and pick it up 7 months later! ~Nanette