#Haunted Package | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shinkei-shinto · 2 years

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I don’t feel like typing this out a million times so, the story of the Haunted Package:

Back in February, I ordered a collar. I put it off for a little bit too long for a bunch of various reasons, and finally contacted the seller, ran into language problems, got things settled out, and paid.

Literally the next day the war started. The war on Ukraine. Where that seller was.

I shrugged and wrote it off. It was less than $50; and certainly, if they could access it, the seller needed it more. I thought about it a few times over the following months, looked longingly at the hiatus’ing and then shut-down shop, looked at the closed listing, all that. No big deal, just some mild heartache.

And then, in early september, I got an email.

“Your package has been assigned a tracking number,” the email said.

“The fuck it has,” I said.

I wrestled with the email, the tracking, I wrestled with the language problems, it’s not really important. Suffice to say I did manage to get the number into a box and that box told me that the number existed.

This is where it gets fun.

So, typically, when you order a package, and it comes with a tracking number, and it is being shipped into the US, there are a couple of options as to What Exactly Happens. The most common one being that the tracking number simply stops working.

So, when I saw that the package had been “accepted” (in a city inside of an active warzone) and “processed” I did not believe anything was happening. When I saw, two days later, with a backdate four days earlier, that it had been “handed over to customs” all within the space of a couple of minutes on the time stamps, I continued to disbelieve anything was really happening. So far, everything is pretty explicable in terms of “someone made up a number to make Etsy stop being upset and allow the shop to be permanently closed”. That’s reasonable! It’s a fucking warzone. They have more important problems than “you can’t close your shop because I need a tracking number, wah wah.”

And then, in the most bizarre twist, the tracking number started working on the USPS website. At the moment, it said something like “this sure does exist in the ukraine somewhere”. That had me curious. I could accept that a website in a language I can’t read might be able to be manipulated with a fake tracking number. Not so for the USPS, which is generally a pain in the ass.

So I watched it. It continued to not move, or update. I eventually wrote it off again; expecting this was just a glitch or happenstance.

But I kept refreshing the page. Once a day. Just for the kick in the nuts.

And then - the USPS tracking updated with the Ukraine tracking information. And this gave me pause. Typically, when I’ve had packages delivered in with tracking numbers, it tracks beautifully right up to the border, and then USPS takes it and goes “lol you paid for international tracking and we’re national, fuck you” and the next update I get is a “you missed our delivery because you were out :( we’re so sowwy”. I have never seen USPS update its tracking on its national, US based website, to include actions that were done in another country before USPS even knew there was a tracking number.

But wait! it gets weirder!

Now USPS knew it existed, I guess. Now I could start refreshing this site, once a day, just for the curiousity at this point. Was it what I ordered? Did someone put a rock in a box and ship it to my address? Did someone return to the post office building in the war zone and take the packages out for delivery, seven months after that package was dropped off??

I will probably never know.

Anyways, two weeks go by. I finally give it up for gone. USPS must have wised up, I told myself. They must have figured out that someone made this up to make a website shut up and stopped this roller coaster here.

And then it updated.

In Jamaica, New York.

“Excuse me?” I thought. “Even if this is an international package, why in the fuck is it somehow on both an island and in the US?” At this point, my partner called it “haunted” and I was quick to agree: this is the strangest package experience I’ve ever had in my entire life. Surely something is in the mail for me now. Will I have to pay customs? Will I have a piece of concrete from a warzone on my desk with the weirdest story ever attached to it???

It moved again. Now it was no longer in Jamaica. And then it disappeared again. And then, a week later, we are now at the end of September, I have waited 20-something days and 7 months for this thing to exist,

It showed up in Portland. But not where I thought it would be; it was not near the airport, the ports, or either of the two major entries into the city; it was somehow one zipcode north of me.

“Alright.” I said. “Game On.” So I started paying attention to it. Of course, this is USPS, so when Sat/Sun hit, I knew there was not going to be anything. All was quiet for a weekend.

And then Monday came. And then it was out for delivery. And then, we reach the not new but still wildly infuriating part of this tale: the “delivery attempt”.

I have an Arlo doorbell camera. It is connected to my phone. When someone presses the button on the doorbell, it rings, and then it rings my phone. I know that packages generally show up somewhere between 11a and 1p. Foolish, foolish me decided I would trust the mail person to press the button on the doorbell camera. Foolish me decided that, because the tracking did not say “signature needed”, it would not need a signature.

Dear readers, was I ever fucking wrong. At 11:35, I refreshed the tracking number.

“Missed Delivery” it said. “Attempted to deliver; no one was home.”

Dear readers. Not only was I home. Not only was my partner home. Not only was my roommate home.

I WAS LESS THAN TWENTY GODDAMN FEET AWAY FROM THE FUCKING DOOR.

He did not knock, he did not ring, he did not even fucking pause, because he had already written out the “we missed you because you were not home!!! :(” pink slip, stuck it to a letter (THAT WAS NOT EVEN MEANT FOR ME! HE JUST RANDOMLY PICKED ONE OF MY ROOMMATES!) and jammed it into the slot.

I have several problems with this. It has never, not once ever, been normal to stick the pink slip to a letter and put it into the slot. We have a metal screen door. I have always, always had my mail people open the screen door (which I would have heard) slap their fist on the door once, probably with the pink slip on that hand to stick it to the door, and then run away like they were being shot at.

At this point, the rage hit me. Not because I had been duped. Not because I had been fucked over by the mail delivery person, who did not knock, who did not ring, who did not even pause for long enough to activate the doorbell camera. No, no, I was mad,

because he chose not to mark one of the two checkboxes for “will attempt redelivery” or “will be at location for pickup tomorrow.”

I understand, you’re overworked. I understand, you’re trying to get done with this shitty thankless job as fast as humanly possible and go home. I understand! I do!

But if you’re going to fucking prewrite the denial slip. If you’re going to fuck me over on purpose when you set out from your little mail truck.

at least.

mark.

the fucking box.

My dear, long-suffering partner, saint that they are, called the post office in my stead (as I was still screeching and throwing soft objects) to ask where it would be.

They hung up on them.

So they called again. And went through the process again. And got hung up on again. So they, expressing more patience than I have ever felt in my entire body,

called the main post office line. And waited. For something like 40 minutes. And listened to all of the fucking nonsense and the stupid condescending robots. And finally, finally got to a real person.

I heard two words out of that real person’s mouth and escorted myself out of the room and off of the floor of the house, because there was enough condescension there to drown me. My wonderful partner did manage to get two important piece of information: first, that the package would in fact be available for pickup the next day at the regular location. Second, that we were going to be blamed for “not being there” no matter what we did.

I think, dear readers, next time, I’m going to set off the doorbell siren. When that hand reaches out with that pink slip and that back turns on me, I think I am going to snap like a brittle bone. I dearly hope they do not attempt this stupid shit again. I dearly hope I am smart enough to remember this in the future, and sit staring at the door for three straight hours. I wonder if they’ll have the good sense to look guilty when I put the full pressure of 17 years in the South behind my gaze.

Anyways. Thanks to some Substances and some Video Games, I managed to taper off the rage boiling in my chest enough to sleep. I planned my day, I did my work, and I left my house at 8:00 on the dot.

The post office, you see, opens at 8:30. It is maybe 15 minutes away. I was not playing games today.

I arrived at 8:12. I sat in my car until 8:20. In that time, I saw three people drive up, park, get out of their cars, see the later-than-normal opening time, and turn around and go home.

I was not going to be defeated so easily.

At 8:20, I moved to the front of the building. At 8:25, I moved inside of the vestibule. By 8:27, I had three compatriots waiting in line with me.

At 8:28, some fucking blonde white woman with a voice like a cheesegrater being used to play a violin walked in, looked at the door marked “employees only”, and pressed the doorbell next to it. Instead of telling her to fuck off and wait in line like the rest of us, the employee who opened that door

helped her.

It is now 8:31. I am now growing increasingly upset at the situation, but my long years of training in Texas have taken over. I am standing with perfect posture. My face may or may not be twisted into a snarl, but I have a mask on: no one can see. My gaze, however, could peel the tracksuit off of that fucking woman.

Someone finally comes to the door of the post office, switches it to open, and welcomes the line of now five people in.

I walk up, and wait. The same person appears behind the counter. I hand him my pink slip. He asks for my ID. I hand him my ID. Now, something I have not yet mentioned in my slow, precise laying-out of this situation: the reason for this? the reason the “delivery” person did not leave me my fucking package?

“Signature Required.”

Now. That’s not unusual. It is an international package. However. I did not pay for signature. It was not present on the tracking page. It was not at any point in any way told to me that I would need to sign for this package. Readers, I was comfortable in this assumption that there was not a signature needed for this package, so when I approached the counter and handed over my ID, I expected, that like all things in the world, the situation would right itself and I would be asked for a signature once the package was in my eyesight.

Now, back to the tale. The nice post office man hands me my ID. He takes my pink slip. And he

disappears.

Into the back room. This is completely normal. I wait the regular amount of time, posture pristine, teeth gritting, one hand held in the other behind my back so that I could sink my claws into my soft pink flesh and not be rude. My phone buzzes. I check the message: it is not critical. I put the phone back in my pocket. The regular amount of time passes again. The man has not returned.

I see him slink across the back of the back room, not making eye contact, to the second back room. This is when I begin to grow concerned. Have I, at this last moment, at this final hurdle, fallen? Has the fucking asshole who “delivered” and ditched “forgotten” the package on his truck? It has happened before. I have been told, in kinder terms, to fuck off and wait for redelivery before.

The man slinks back the other way, but this time he feels my gaze, looks half over his shoulder, tries a smile - he doesn’t feel it - and speed walks back to the first back room.

Oh, no.

He is joined by a coworker. They are both looking, my little pink slip in hand. One of them disappears from view further into the back room. Now the other one, too. We are approaching the 10 minute mark.

More agonizing time passes. The line has grown to maybe 7 people behind me. There are no other cashiers. We all wait.

Finally, finally, he returns, a curious, nonstandard shaped package in his hand. Is it my package?

He dumps it on the counter, out of reach, out of view, and disappears again.

It took everything in my tiny body not to do more than unclasp my hands from behind my back, throw them out at my hips in a “are you fucking serious” gesture, catch myself, and lock my sharp little claws back into my squishy little wrist again.

Several minutes later, he returns. He has a cash drawer. “Oh?” I think “Do I need to pay customs fees? Is that what this is?” He assembles his drawer. He places it into his register. He picks up my box.

“Finally,” I think to myself, “finally this is going to be over.”

He scans the box. He places it on the scale.

“Here you go :)”

“I don’t need to sign? I don’t need to pay?”

“Nope!” And he waves the next person over.

At this point. I have been misled. I have been ditched. I have been dragged across this fucking saga for an entire month plus one extra day just to fuck me over a little bit more.

And then I find out. That I do not - that I have not - that I NEVER needed to sign. That the person who “attempted delivery” marked a box that wasn’t even relevant for reasons I will never understand.

I get to my car. I now have this strange box, possibly containing a collar, possibly containing a very light piece of warzone rubbish. I take out my knife - several inches long, cardboard destroyer, bark ripper, this thing looks mean - and the person in the car next to me, who has just arrived, widens their eyes and scurries off towards the post office.

There was, in fact, a collar in the box.

It was not the collar I ordered. Someone went to great lengths to get very close to the object that I had discussed with the seller, that I had seen photographs of, but it was not the object that I ordered.

The hardware was different (this was my first clue) and the stitching was poor. And the material for the decoration was different. And the riveting was different.

Thus ends the Haunted Package Saga, story of the strangest package delivery I have ever experienced, not with a bang or a whimper, but with an extremely, extremely confused me.

I sort of wish it had been a warzone rock.

#text post #readmore #long post #shin talks #The Haunted Package Saga #Haunted Package #at least if it was a rock I would have been delightedly confused #but this leaves me with even more questions #just to add more bullshit to the pile I got stuck behind not one #but TWO usps mail trucks on the way home #it took TWICE AS LONG to get home #and then I had not one but TWO bikers decide that the appropriate way to signal their intent to randomly turn left across a two lane street #was to lift their hand from the handlebar not even enough to make a limp gay wrist #and then FLING themselves into traffic -- in front of my car.

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