Going to town is no walk in the park

I think my entire week has been spent waiting for the UPS truck.

A week ago Friday, I arrived home after picking up the 3-year-old from pre-school and then grocery shopping and then play rehearsal to discover a note on my front door. Apparently, United Parcel Service had a package for me that I needed to sign for and I wasn’t home. The sticky note on my door highlighted the fact that they would try again on Monday morning.

Monday mornings are not good to catch me at home. My son has gymnastics lessons, then there’s the pool and then there’s the gym, all before nap times. I tried to call the number on the note and got lost in the telephone-recorded jungle that existed on the other end. I finally got someone with a severe personality disorder who was apparently disturbed that anyone was able to navigate the phone button system to actually talk to a human being. This individual said she would have the local office call me.

I got no phone call Monday, but when I got back to the house after my children’s gymnastic classes there was another little note stuck to my door. Apparently the UPS national office is not very good at internal memos.

So I called again, and this time armed with considerable more experience in their phone service, it only took 10 minutes to find a living, breathing human being. Eleven minutes during which my daughter wept and shrieked into my ear, apparently convinced that my love affair with the phone strapped to my ear was going to supplant my adoration for her.

The individual I spoke to this time was a little more sympathetic and suggested possibly an evening delivery. I explained that I am never home in the evenings because I am directing a madrigal play for my church and therefore not home in order to answer the door. I asked if the cats could sign for the package and didn’t get a laugh or even a giggle. Apparently a sense of humor is not a job requirement for this company.

I’m also afraid it’s entirely possible I wasn’t the most polite human being in the world when the nice man on the other end asked if someone else could sign for it if I wasn’t home, like my husband. I directed him to deliver the package to Kalsu, Iraq, if my husband’s signature would suffice, thinking they might have better luck catching him.

In the end, I promised to be home on Tuesday afternoon between the hours of noon and 5 p.m. to await delivery. My daughter missed a play-date so that I could be home, but I was told that if I missed this last delivery, I would have to pick up the package in Anchorage or at an affiliate office. The nearest affiliate office closest to my house is Office Depot — in Anchorage.

So I waited anxiously all afternoon Tuesday. Two o’clock came and went with no package. Then three o’clock. Finally, I called the office at four o’clock, waiting the obligatory decade to speak with someone in another state, to explain I absolutely had to leave my house at 5 p.m. and needed the package by then. I was assured someone from the Anchorage office would call within an hour. When I finally left my house for my appointment at 5:30 p.m., there was still no package. And no phone call.

I left the UPS man a note on my door, written in poetic verse. Once of the stanzas read:

I do not want to go to Anchorage for this

Because that’s a long ride with children small

And I want to state that waiting for you is the pits—

Could you not at least call?

All told, I thought it was a great piece of poetry.

When I got back at 8 p.m., there was another note on my door. And the note with my beautiful prose on it hadn’t even been opened, and was still on the door its envelope. I think I was more hurt that the UPS guy didn’t get the opportunity to review my literary wit than I was that I didn’t even merit a phone call.

I was informed by the Post-It that this was the final delivery attempt and that the office would keep my package in Anchorage for four days and then send it back.

So, I called again and waited and waited and read my son the unabridged version of “The Iliad” in its original ancient Greek and finally got to speak with someone and give my arguments. Again.

I was told that they would attempt delivery one last time. They are willing, albeit reluctantly, to give me one more chance provided I don’t blow it. I have to be home Thursday from noon until after 5 p.m. My son will miss swimming and my daughter will miss her toddler playtime, but I am not going to let this final chance slip through my fingers.

I’ll admit it: I don’t even know what is in the darn package. I just don’t want to go into Anchorage for it. And to be honest, this is just one more in a long list of reasons I am anxiously awaiting my husband to come home — so he can sigh for UPS packages.

In other news, the gentleman told me not to mention his name, so I won’t, but the anonymous man who plowed my driveway after the snowstorm we had this week will be in my prayers for eternity.

He has no idea how grateful and thankful I am.

He’s never met me, but has read my column and did what he did out of the generosity of his heart.

UPS could learn from people like him.

Tiffany Horvath is the mother of two and the stepmother of one. Her husband, Drew, is deployed to Iraq. She writes every Sunday abut life at home for the wife of a deployed soldier.