The slogan for UPS used to be “What can Brown do for you?” and I think of it every time I sit here trying to be a zen master, trying not to use every swear word I know to describe the brown truck and the clueless driver who can’t find my house.
Warning: Rant coming.
We live rural. And with that comes a lot of adjustments that have to be made. We have to drive half an hour to get to some semblance of civilization (i.e. the nearest Walmart). We have to commute half an hour to get to our respective jobs. And we live on a road that claims to be in Poland but is actually in Newport.
Hence lies our troubles with UPS (apparently FedEx can find us, no problem).
They just can’t seem to find our house. Time and again we’ve ordered things online and they just haven’t been able to make their way to us. Just before Christmas I had an amazing present for my wife coming through UPS, and the truck drove down our road but didn’t stop at our house. I saw it. It passed right by, slowly, but our driveway is very long, and it was impossible to get him to notice me shouting from the garage doorway.
This is common practice. This happened again today. I was waiting for a very important package, and once again the driver passed right by, heading up the hill and away. Ten minutes later he returned, heading in the opposite direction. I once again took to my heels, raced down the driveway, and frantically waved my arms around, screaming the whole time.
The driver pulled over to the side of the road, two houses down, but I was only halfway down my driveway at that point. There was no way he could hear me screaming. Besides, I heard his radio blasting, and he didn’t get out of the vehicle to look around. Had he done so, he would have seen me cavorting in the driveway and possibly come over to see if I was having a stroke or something. No such luck. Instead, after a minute sitting there, he drove off, never to be seen again.
Five minutes later I got an alert on my phone that my address was “insufficient” and that was that. Well, those UPS people got a piece of my mind in the subsequent phone call (which I had to dial thrice because my hands were shaking so much). I just don’t understand how, in this age of GPS, and knowing exact locations of every Taco Bell in the United States, they can’t get my packages delivered to my exact address. There are numbers on the post leading to our driveway, after all.
But, somehow, I guess UPS thinks they’re doing their due diligence by driving by twice, pulling over to the side of the road once, and never getting out or asking any neighbors where our domicile might possibly be. Great job, Brown. If that’s all you can do for me, then I guess I understand why you changed your slogan. Because it wasn’t a very good one to begin with.
Now I have to go to the UPS office half an hour away to retrieve my package. They said on the phone they would be glad to redeliver it, but who knows if they’ll find me that time either? I can’t count on it. If only FedEx could corner the market.
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