escape to insanity

Ahh, FedEx.

Not exactly the greatest experience thus far. I'll back up for those of you who aren't as familiar with the situation as I've been. I bid on and won a “platinum” (aka “silver”) Nintendo GameCube on eBay last Sunday, November the fourth. I promptly paid the seller, and she dropped it off at her local FedEx location on Wednesday the seventh. (Nevermind that it was supposed to be UPS Ground handling the damn thing. UPS are good people.) I've already bought the controllers and some games, I'm just waiting on the console itself.

By 6pm Wednesday I had a tracking number and was able to use FedEx's tracking page to see the general, uber-vague status of my shipment. I could see that around noon on Thursday, it had been “In FedEx possession” in Texas. Estimated delivery is stated as Tuesday November 13. I was hoping to have gotten it by Friday to have it hooked up for my party, but alas… 'twas not to be. Fine. Such is life.

Six hours later it was “Picked up” by FedEx at a different facility, still in Texas, in a town only 20 miles away. Another two hours, and it's listed as “Arrived at FedEx location.” Good, progress! Oh wait, still in that same town somehow. It took two hours to go from “picked up” to “arrived” at the same facility?

By midnight Thursday, going into Friday, it had finally “Left origin” and was supposedly on its way to me. Sweet nectar!

Well… they must have put it in a backpack and walked it north, because 19 and a half hours later it had only made it to Chicago. I'm pretty sure I could have launched it from a trebuchet and gotten it here quicker. Meh. Traffic must have been bad, right? Alright, so it's in Chicago. Almost here!! Oh wait… another six hours til it left the Chicago location, and four more after that to make it to the “local” office that's sort of near-ish to me.

Saturday, early afternoon, I get around to checking the status again. Amazingly, the package is now “on FedEx vehicle for delivery.” HOLY SWEETNESS, BATMAN! I could have it today! What time is it? *checks clock* It's 12:30pm, so it's been on a truck for… let's see… 9:30am… minus the… carry the one… three hours! It should be here any minute!

*cricket* *cricket* *rolling tumbleweed* *cricket*

Nada. I had to make a run to the grocery store, so I left a note with instructions to leave the package there if they showed up in the time I was gone. No more than an hour later, I was back, still no package. Alas, forgot some quick little things that I still needed, so to the local grocery store I went, back in under fifteen minutes.

Still nothing.

By 7:30pm Saturday, still nothing, and now the tracking results show a “delivery exception - customer not available.” Terrific. Of the 12 hours my GameCube was on their truck, they came during the one hour I was gone. Alright, I called FedEx to see if they could drop it at a local FedEx location (there's one very close to me) and I could pick it up myself. “Well sir, it looks like they're closed for the day.” Great. “But we'll attempt to deliver it again on Monday, or we can have it kept at the location and you can pick it up.” Alright… well… I'll let them try to deliver it.

Monday I call back to see if I can get them to deliver to my work address, or maybe still hold it at the store by me. “Oh, sorry, we can't change the address. And oh, sorry, we don't deliver on Mondays.” What? “We deliver on Saturdays, so Mondays are off.” Well… what the hell? Why was I told on Saturday that Monday would be the day? “Oh I'm so sorry you were told that sir.” Ok, can you give me a timeframe I can expect it to be delivered, so I can be home this time? “Well sir, our delivery drivers are independent contractors, so we don't have any control over them. Based on previous deliveries, I'd guess sometime between 4 and 8pm.”

So today's the day. I hope. Sometime in that four-hour window I'm hoping to hear my doorbell ring. We'll see if that happens.

And then Smash Brothers Melee will be rockin.