I bought an American flag. Huzzah! My first flag of my very own. Jingoistic innit, but I don't care. This one; a pole, a bracket, a little eagle, nylon for outside, everything. I'm set. It will be the flappiest flag around here.
Placed the order May 16th for the holiday May 26, and I do realize that is cutting it close. This might not work. I know that going in and I'll have only myself to blame if it does not arrive in time. Oh well, there is always July 4th and that is a better holiday anyway.
The order is processed more rapidly than I expected and confirmed shipped the next day and I tingle with a spark of faint hope of the chance that my flag could arrive on time. Although the document does not say, so I do not know how the package is shipped.
I expect a knock on the door any day after this or a call from the office downstairs. USPS is usually fast. The ladies in the office are expecting it too because I tell them my plan and ask for their help intercepting. I keep in touch each day. They got my back. They like me because I feed them all the time.
This morning an email from USPS saying they tried to deliver but failed, but I know, we know that is nonsense. If they tried it would be here.
The document is titled "one day shipping" Ha! The vendor did not get what he paid for. Dated the 24th, it notes they received the package the 20th, a mere 4 days after the order was placed and 4 days previous to the one day shipping notification, the last day possible to make it time for the holiday. They have a strange calculation for days.
But here is the thing. The notification says, "print your label and show it in the nearest post office to get my package."
So much presumption in one little sentence; that I have a printer, that it works reliably, that I know where the Post Office is, that I have transportation to get there, or that I can walk to it.
But when I do try to go along with their demands and print the label the click through I get a 404 error page and the address ends in .it for Italy. I think. Maybe "it" means something else. I do not know for sure They give me no information at all. Do this: no information.
http://www.computerworldconsulting.it/lang.php?er=wxyUuTibr4fqqbq7RysaUmlX%252BLDjfgXwkW0U%252FalEwxQ%253D
So I did go to the Post Office near my house. I do have a printer that works but nothing to print, I do have transportation and I can walk. So their presumptions turn out to be right, but how would they know that? I figured my I.D. will just have to do. And they are closed, just after noon. Although the mailman showed up today he did not bring my package with him. And that makes me sad, and disgusted, and cross, and disappointed all at the same time. All for a flag. So now when it does come, or when I go back to get it after the holiday, I will most likely feel only resentment. And when July 4th comes I'll go, "pfffft" stupid flag.
But I did get a wonderful deal, a $75.00 flag for $25.00. Not bad, eh? I should just shut up and appreciate the good things that are offered, but I am human with emotions and cannot always be so reasoned as that.
14 comments:
Usually, my stuff comes on time (the one time it didn't was by FedEx), but I understand the anguish.
It worked better when it was the Post Office, rather than the Postal Service.
We display our flag in one of those 45 degree brackets and the flag itself is attached to a revolving tube on the staff so it doesn't get all wrapped around if it flaps too much but it gets all wrapped around, anyway, and it's all a complete mystery to me.
So much presumption in one little sentence; that I have a printer, that it works reliably, that I know where the Post Office is, that I have transportation to get there, or that I can walk to it.
#ChipAhoyPriviledge ;)
I have a printer but I don't have ink.
I realized I didn't need it. Part of the realization came when I made a set of CDs for a friend with accompanying iTunes printed songs list CD jewel case.
Sometime later I saw the CD's had a new home, inside a portable CD case. The printed inserts were gone.
I've gotten emails like that. They're spam, at least the ones I get. You shouldn't need to print anything out to get mail that should be delivered to your home. They should leave a notice in your box upon first attempt, then re-attempt 2-3 more times. I was a part-time mailman for a few years.
Check the tracking on Amazon.com. It should give a much more accurate indication. And complain about the delivery time to Amazon. You likely will get a refund.
I get those fake shipping notices all the time. I haven't ordered anything. Why are they sending me a notice. The address of the email sender is suspicious. Like THIS Economy Shipping [donotreply_id77@djk-an-grossostheim.de] BTW: the dot de inicates Germany. These all go, unread, into the trash with the lottery prize emails for lotteries that I haven't entered and all the other annoying spam.
Our biggest problem is that we do NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT get mail from the USPS delivered to our street address. Everyone who lives within a certain mileage of the post office MUST have a PO Box. Shipping companies don't get it. If we are to have it mailed USPS. Otherwise it comes FedEx or UPS. They know where we live. I can't tell you how many things have been sent BACK by the US Post office because they are sent with our street address. We are still fighting with the insurance company to get my husband's health insurance cards. It was sent back TWO times already. Listen up United Health Care....you HAVE to use our PO Box. Gaaaaah!
If you ordered it from Amazon. Go back to Amazon and make your complaint or search for your item from their end. It is secure.
Chip...not sure how your order got so screwed up on delivery. Where I live the USPS is one of the better delivery outfits. I select them whenever I can when making on-line purchases.
Never-the-less....there is no doubt in my military mind that you represent those who honor the fallen on Memorial Day, with or without a flag to fly. I'll fly mine for both of us. I'm betting AllenS will do so as well.
Around here (rural Ohio) the post office delivers amazon packages even on Sunday.
Amazon prime, free 2-day. Order on Friday and it will arrive on Sunday.
They're marked leave even if nobody home, the last I looked.
Maybe thieving Colorado is different.
I'm not into flags but like those who are, as a marker of stuff of ordinary life
pics.
I remember, or misremember since Google doesn't find it, the German poem line "Ich fahre die Fahne!" (I carry the flag) some young guy writes home with pride, I assume in some charge on the enemy back when they did that sort of thing.
A happy Memorial Day to you "rh" and to the memories that go with it.
I bin punked. The spam coincided with an actual order that I actually was waiting for. It made sense. But then so much about it did not make sense, and it fed into my biases. Oi. I really must check my biases because it opens me to being punked like this. I'll just wait patiently.
The pole is the type that turns inside a tube to avoid raveling. Now that I ordered it I can hardly wait.
Ever see kids with flags? They love flags. I don't know why. It makes them feel solemn and important, I guess. And they are.
Hopefully you haven't been double punked and the fifty "dense-filled-embroidered stars" will turn out to be as fulsome as described along with the Gleaming Gold Eagle. Although I wish your flag had arrived in time to be unfurled for the holiday, I'm enjoying the story that unfurled as a result, including rhhardin's picture collection of flags and "ordinary life".
Last night we watched the HBO film "Taking Chance" about a fallen soldier's last trip home and honor accorded him by his escort and those who handled his body and casket, with this line as the most memorable: "You are his witness now. Without a witness, they just disappear."
Aridog, thanks for the special salute to rh and his collection. It was the other photo of his dog sitting next to the small flag and mailbox (7th row down) that caught my attention and make me blink fast so as not to be guilty of showing too much female emotion.
MomaM ... there's nothing ordinary about rhhardin, the man of few words...but his images speaks loudly. I adored his "Vickie" from afar, and know a man who loves his dogs as much as I do mine...maybe more. So I had to honor her and him today.
Chip Ahoy ... please let me know here, or by email, how you like the flag you get. I've saved the photo image of the advertisement, so I can order one if you say it is cool. You ARE a fussy dude, dude...so I figure I can trust your opinion.
I've wanted one of these tangle free flag poles for some time now, but all that I have seen would not fit my existing bracket or cast steel about 60 years old. The diameter of the shaft is important...if you know it please advise. I already have a embossed flag or the requisite size, one the ones flown over the White House for my better-half's father, via his Congressman, long ago.
Either I continue to use my house bracket, or I just go and put up a pole in my side yard to fly the flag...in my neighborhood, I think it is important.
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