Liars, Dang Liars, and FedEx

Pony needs a new pair of pants. Well. Not any more. Barely.

The Pony's postal uniform pants cost an arm and a leg! Over $100 for one pair of pants. That's because they can only be ordered from approved vendors, using the yearly uniform allowance. I don't know for sure, but I think The Pony's amount is $500. Maybe a little less, since he's not brand-new any more. As you might surmise, The Pony can either go pantsless and have a coat to wear in the sub-zero temps. Or get a couple shirts and pairs of shorts to not expire from heat stroke in the summer. Or try to get one of everything over a few years, and do laundry every night. 

I don't know exactly what comprises The Pony's work wardrobe, but he had mentioned that he has two pairs of pants. I had seen online that some City Carriers supplement their uniforms with Ben Hogan golf pants and shorts from Walmart. The pants are the same style, and reasonable close in color, though more gray than blue. And they lack the stripe down the side. But still closer to the look of the uniform than random cargo pants or jeans. The shorts are remarkably similar in color, a denim heather, only lacking the stripes down the side.

Anyhoo... I told The Pony I'd get him a couple pairs of those pants, and a pair of shorts, to see if he liked them. He did. So on Tuesday, I ordered two more pairs of pants, and three of the shorts, at a grand total of $95 plus tax. That will give The Pony four of each. He doesn't work more than four days in a row. So it will help out with his budget and laundry.

I had no choice of shipping method. These items could not be delivered to our local store. FedEx was the shipping method. That's how the last ones came. A few days later than originally promised, but they got here with the stout red-headed young man who has made our FedEx delivery the last three times in a row. That's unusual. In the past, it's been a different driver every time.

Anyhoo... I thought nothing of it, because I was here during the scheduled delivery time between 10:50 and 1:50. I was sitting on the short couch, or in the kitchen tending some baked beans for supper.

At 1:27, I got an email that my package had been delivered at 1:18. Well. That was odd. I had heard nary a dog bark, nor a tread on the porch, nor a knock on the door. I went to get my package. 

NOTHING WAS THERE! I walked around the porch. Nothing by the front door, nothing by the back door, nothing on the side porch, nothing on the seat of Hick's lawnmower parked under the carport. I went back inside to read my email again. Delivered at 1:18. No signature necessary. Left at the front door. 

I called Hick.

"They probably left it down at that other lady's house again, like they kept doing with my breather parts. I'll check when I get home. I'll drive around the yard, then go ask her if she got a package that's not hers."

"Okay. Maybe you can put it on the Facebook out here to see if anybody else got it. The dogs are here. There's nothing in the yard except half a paper plate. I don't know where they got that."

My dogs eat their treats off the wood porch boards like a dog should! Not off paper plates like canine royalty.

I was NOT happy. Until this red-headed guy, FedEx has messed up more of our packages than they've delivered like they should.

This was my errand day. I was already running late, now that I'd wasted time looking for a package that was supposedly left at my front door by some invisible weightless person with a scent no dog could detect! I'd have to hurry to miss the after-school traffic. I was fuming all through my shower, and a bit cross with the dogs who gamboled so joyfully at my heels as I left. Shame on me. I had no evidence that they'd stolen my package.

Still fuming as I crept along at 5 mph to avoid a detour halfway to China in the giant pot holes that plague our mile of gravel road. As I neared the county blacktop road, something caught my eye:

It was my FRONT DOOR! Yeah. I'm being sarcastic. I would call that a MAILBOX. Not a front door. 

SOMEBODY at FedEx is a dirty, dirty liar! It's one thing to get lost and leave a package on the wrong front porch. It takes a true RUMPUSHOLE to stuff that package in a row of mailboxes on a county road a mile from the delivery address, and SAY IT WAS LEFT AT THE FRONT DOOR!

If it had been left at the wrong house out here, the resident would NOT have driven it out to the county road and stuffed it beside our mailbox. They would have driven it to our house, or called to say come and get it. This was pure lying laziness. FedEx is also the company that delivered a box containing The Pony's shoes last summer, and left it on top of the mailboxes. I'm pretty sure this was not done by our red-headed guy. After all, he's made it to our actual house three times this month. Must have been his day off.

Of course I sent a picture to The Pony. Who said, "Illlllegal!" Which it is, for anybody besides the USPS to put anything in or on a mailbox. Not that the USPS would do anything about it, unless it's a business stuffing their ads in a bunch of them. Then they get billed for postage.

FedEx LITERALLY broke our mailbox. Sure, it was falling apart and cracked before the stuffing. But not to that extent. See the splinter on top of EmBee? That wasn't there before. And her side walls were not split completely apart. Yeah. It's damaged more than it was before the stuffing. I wonder how many tries it took to jam that package in there.

Hope The Pony doesn't get splinters in his rumpus! I know I sure have a pain in mine.