the wicker man

I have a strange love hate relationship with the USPS and UPS. These companies, being the most common sources of deliveries for mine and most other peoples packages, have a tendency to let me down quite often. I love to receive packages. It is like having Christmas year round when I receive something nice I have ordered for myself or Tammy. The problem is my mail carrier has been known to some rather negligent things with our packages if we are not home. We have found packages propped up against the door and our mailbox, which is actually one of the most considerate acts this particular carrier has performed. Stranger things happen when we are home. I have waited all day for packages, tracking them on the internet while also watching TV or something else near the front door, only to discover "delivery attempted" on the USPS web site. I look outside... all the mailbox flags are down. I check my mailbox... junk mail. No attempted delivery slip. I check my door... no slip. I was downstairs all day and I did not hear a single knock or ring on the doorbell. I go the post office and they ask to see my slip and I tell them I do not have one. I have to explain that I tracked the package on the net and could not find a slip for attempted delivery. They search and end up finding said packages. On a couple of instances they talk to me about the carrier telling me this happens with her all the time. Over time I have come to realize what happens. While lying in bed I have been awakened by a cars relentless honking outside my window only to look outside and see the carrier driving away from my apartment. I throw some clothes on quickly and run downstairs and out my door to chase the vehicle down the street. When she stops she hand me a package. I am so sleepy and groggy (and barefooted) that a just yank the package out of her hand and run back home instead of yelling at her as I would love to do. I cannot believe a carrier will sit in a car and honk a horn instead of knocking on a door or ringing a bell. I suppose that is why I missed my other packages. Instead of listening for a doorbell or a knock on my door I should have been listening for a car horn to honk in my large residential community. And that is just USPS.
There is also the ever elusive UPS delivery people. One night Tammy came home at two cases of Jolt in a cardboard box sitting outside our door soaked in the rain. She tells the story better, but needless to say there was cardboard and packing styrofoam all over the driveway and road. It is funny, which ever shift I work UPS makes sure to deliver (or attempt) my packages on the other shift. I thought when I went to night shift recently that I would be able to eliminate missing a lot of my packages. Unfortunately, UPS has decide to start delivering my packages after 5pm. I used to break my neck at work to try to be home by 1pm, the time I usually missed my packages, only to find an attempted delivery slip saying they had been there at 12:30pm. I know this all sounds bitter and exaggerated, but I have missed two packages this week. I have a collection of UPS delivery slips and no present to give my wife for Christmas. I wrote little messages on the slips and put them back on the door. They were nice polite messages asking to leave the packages with neighbors, but alas, the messages were ignored and accompanied by new slips with lovely messages like "Final attempt". Enough of the rant, I need to get ready to go to my in-laws house for Christmas, but I have many great Christmas Eve stories to relay from last night that I will get to later.