Friday, February 9, 2018

What If I Said NO?

When we last convened, Mrs. HM had been called to the front door of the Mansion by the seldom-heard doorbell.

Let the record show that it was 10:30 a.m., that I had only been up for an hour, I was still in blue pajama bottoms sporting golden stars and moons, paired with a white and purple pinstriped short-sleeve button-up shirt, no shoes or socks, with a semi-bad case of bedhead.

Of course I went right to the door and flung it open. In retrospect, this was not a smart move in this isolated area, for a woman of questionable years, not fleet of foot, untrained in the martial arts or weaponry, with her stout husband at locations unknown. While you may think Mrs. HM is a suspicious sort, she has more than once been deemed too trusting.

A young man of early 20s stood on the front porch. A tall stringbean of a young man, in a brown uniform, clutching an electronic gewgaw which he thrust in my direction.

"Uh...I was here yesterday...and I left a box. I need a signature. I was just unloading it, looking around for dogs, and I left it. But I should have gotten a signature. It's really important...if you could do that for me. Uh...and I have to scan the box..."

Well. There I was, sans foundation garments, vulnerable to robbery and mayhem, with a box weighing 50 pounds under my kitchen table, that this kid needed to scan.

"That was a box of wine."

"Oh. I knew it was wine."

"It was supposed to go to Kansas City."

Not that such a fact mattered to Young Brown, because he was only delivering it to the address on the box, not his problem, his being the fact that he'd dumped that box without a signature, maybe because he was afraid of dogs in the dark, maybe because he was running late on his route, and wanted to get home.

"So...can you sign for me? It will save my skin!"

"Sure, I'll sign. On your gadget there?"

"Well...I have to scan the box."

No way was I traipsing him through my living room and kitchen. The less he saw of my Mansion, the better.

"You'll need to come around to the kitchen door. Just go that way, halfway around. You'll see it."

I'm pretty sure he was worried about dogs, but they were over at the Freight Container Garage with Farmer H, I learned later. I'm thinking Young Brown's heart probably skipped a beat when he saw Juno's giant dog house right by the kitchen door. Anyhoo...I let him in to scan the box. Which I left under the kitchen table. No way was I going to drag out a 50-pound box because HE had made a mistake. Though I DID offer him the option of dragging it out himself. But he just leaned over and stuck his scanner in there. Twice.


Good thing I altered that picture in Paint, and didn't actually blot out the bar codes with a marker!

Young Brown then handed me his electronical signing thingy.

"Do you have a pen?"

"Uh. No. I left my stylus out in the truck. Here. Just use your fingernail."

As you might imagine, Mrs. HM's fingernail signature, while not wearing her glasses, was not something that Young Brown could decipher.

"Can you spell your first name for me? And the last?"

Yeah. I saved Young Brown's skin. Or at least his job, maybe. He's been out here before. He's the one who left Genius's gift wallet made of Bison leather, monogrammed, with RFID blocker, from Sharper Image, propped against the front door, last Christmas, when Jack ate 1/3 of it before I got home.

You'd think this kid would have learned something by now, especially since we filed a complaint and tried to get our money back from UPS for their slipshod delivery methods. To no avail, of course. Surely they at least made a mention to him about the incident.

Then again...he DID say I would save his skin by signing. Maybe he's on double-secret probation.

6 comments:

River said...

I almost feel sorry for the poor young man. Out here is there is no one to sign for a package it doesn't get left. We get a note in the mail box to either collect it from the local post office or we have to arrange for redelivery.
I've used a fingernail to sign those tablet thingy's too.

Hillbilly Mom said...

River,
This was UPS, and they're not supposed to leave it if a signature is required and no one is home. They slap a sticker on the door telling that they tried, and to contact them for re-delivery. They also send an email that you need to contact them to arrange a second delivery. Thing is...this kid didn't even come up on the porch to see if anyone was home.

Genius said that he was having this HUGE box of wine shipped to a UPS store near his apartment, because he was afraid he wouldn't be home to sign when it arrived. Then he could go by after work and sign and pick it up.

The post office will leave a card in our mailbox, but they don't come all the way to our house, anyway. It's technically on private property once you get on the gravel road, and the post office won't come up in here, even if we all put a mailbox out in front of our house.

Sioux Roslawski said...

How tough of a job is that--drive to the address, take the package (hee hee, I said package) to the door, get a signature and let the customer grab hold of the package (hee hee).

Good grief.

Hillbilly Mom said...

Sioux,
Seriously! I had students and their parents who would have thought they won the lottery if they got a job like that! Plus, you know, they'd get to handle PACKAGES all day!

Kathy's Klothesline said...

Ladies! All this talk of packages! Whew, got me all stirred up! My UPS driver is actually afraid of me and would never do anything I could report him for. Could be the conversation we had early on in his new route about running my stop signs and speeding.

Hillbilly Mom said...

Kathy,
I blame Sioux! She likes to talk about packages almost as much as she likes to talk about wood chippers!

My old UPS driver was Mother Teresa. Okay. Not the ACTUAL Mother Teresa. I think she couldn't get a work visa. Or come back to life. But the old one was a lady who carried dog biscuits in her pockets. Our dogs LOVED her. She'd carry the PACKAGE onto the back porch, set it on top of Juno's dog house, give two knocks on the door, and be on her way. Package was out of sight, off the ground, and where we'd find it.

If she needed a signature, she'd knock again, or leave a yellow sticky note on the door that she needed a time to come back when someone was home. This young guy is such a dog-chicken that I think he needs a uniform made out of that padding that attack-dog trainers wear.