‘Tis the season between Xmess and New Blears when the tough go shopping and the rest of us sit on the couch and groan about all the holiday binge eating they shouldn’t have done. It’s also that special time of the year when grousing endlessly about missing packages and tracking numbers that don’t track reaches its peak.

Take my advice – if you shop online, be sure to check the delivery option many, many times before clicking “confirm.” I thought I did, but it turns out that I must have clicked the back button at least once to check on the order. And going “back” reset the delivery option from ‘guaranteed to get there before Xmess” to “special yak delivery via Lhasa, Tibet using real Tibetans and the yaks they rode in on.”

Some online shopping sites have a reasonable choice for their cheapest, default delivery. However, I was not at one of those sites, I was at this upscale web page called “Red Envelope.” I just wanted to order a nice little beermaking kit for the hubby, and their product was a good deal and didn’t require accessories for an extra charge. And although I thought I was ordering with priority delivery, the default option came up when I stupidly went back to verify a detail on the order.

Unfortunately, their default option is this weird hybrid of Airborne and the frickin’ US Postal Disservice. The tracking feature is a joke, because in 3 different places on the page it says “shipped,” which tends to give that warm, falsely secure glow. The only clue that something is amiss is that when you actually plug in the Airborne tracking number, it merely says “In Transit.” Well, this little brewery in a drum has been “In Transit” since the 22nd. Of December. And I’m told that 1) once Airborne’s red and white yak finally drops the package off at the Post Office package sorting facility in my area, that will be it for Airborne tracking it. And 2) the Post Office won’t be tracking it beyond that point. And there’s no guarantee that Airborne’s status page will ever say anything beyond “In Transit” until the package mysteriously appears sometime next week. Apparently, they don’t necessarily log the package out as “handed off” from the red and white yak to the red, white and blue sloth.

But wait, there’s more!

Another Airborne adventure awaits! Only the other day, The Hub took delivery of a computer part from Airborne. Although it was marked “Adult Signature Required” and he was home at the time, the doorbell was not rung and the package was left on the front porch. He discovered it when he was checking for the delivery of the beermaking kit. And then for fun he ran the tracking number, and Airborne’s system informed him that our house apparently has a receptionist named J. Ramsey, who signed for the package that had been dumped on the stoop.

Well, I wish Ms. Ramsey would get off her butt and do a little housework and maybe fetch me some sushi. What’s the use of having a receptionist around the house if all she does is sign for packages?

And yes, another amusing express delivery horror story! My sister Timmy (don’t ask, it’s a family name thing gone horribly wrong) was supposed to take delivery of a very expensive (like $2000 expensive) watch for a friend a few years back. Because she obsesses about these responsibilities, she checked every stage of the watch’s journey to her door. All went well, until she was surprised to find that it had apparently been delivered and signed for (you bet it was signature required).

And this time, it wasn’t on her front porch. After a day or two of panicking and calling the delivery customer service people, her neighbor brought the package over and said they’d found it on their front porch when they returned from a weekend trip. It had been sitting across the street for about 2 days… and of course it had been dumped, with no signature obtained, because remember? The neighbors were out of town.

She had fun for about another day stringing the delivery people along into thinking they’d have to replace the watch before she told them the neighbor had found it. And yes, the street address was correct, it was dropped off at the wrong house. With a fake signature to “prove” that it had been correctly delivered and signed for.

Catching Up With/Recovering From The Holidays

Ugh, well, sometime this year I have to get the house straightened back into a semblance of order. Christmas morning was a scene of modified bedlam. Note to self: if guests say they are “doing Atkins” buy three times as much meat

Also note to self: Children eat a lot more than their parents tell you they eat. This is probably why parents are so happy when you invite them and their progeny to your home to eat stuff.

It was a fun morning, but the best part was waving “bye-bye” to everyone and collapsing.

And Speaking of Atkins

Last night we went to one of our favorite restaurants – a little Italian bistro called Babaluci.

Now, from what I understand, the Atkins diet requires the dieter to eat a lot of meat and protein, and limit carbohydrates. So you would not expect to find a lot of Atkins-friendly menu items in a pasta joint, right? Well…

You have to realize that since we returned from our trip to England, we became used to a few weird things, like really good beer on tap and couples in restaurants speaking in hushed, almost inaudible whispers.

Last night, we were seated next to two couples carrying on a normal, ordinary American dinner conversation. Which means that the women were talking about the Atkins diet and the men were ignoring them and talking about sports.

All of them had carefully coiffed hair – the women’s hair was accessorized and teased and parted and backcombed and colored and God knows what all. And the men’s hair had that “buffed and puffed” look that makes me think of car salesmen and… Herb Tarlek.

The women spoke in loud, harsh, nasal voices at such a high pitch that the FCC should have been notified. Every fourth word was “Atkins.” The whole conversation seemed to revolve around whether it was okay to have one tiny little slice of bread, or whether this amount exceeded one’s daily allowance of “good carbs…” or indeed whether it was actually “good carbs” or “bad carbs.” This was after they’d finished their entree, which was probably chicken Vesuvio or something similar, without pasta or rice.

After they determined the goodness or badness of the carbs in question, the conversation continued along the lines of “well, that was such a tiny little slice. It’s not even half a cup. I can eat half a cup of good carbs. Atkins says…”and then the other one would interrupt with “but it’s bad carbs, it’s not whole grain bread.”

And just so you know, the words came out “BAAAAAAAAaaaaaad CAAAAAAAAAAaaaarrrrrrbs” and “AAAAAAAAAaaaatkuns.”

Finally, they left, and a hush fell over the restaurant. I’m pretty sure that everyone else had been waiting to see if the one lady would get away with her “good carb/bad carb” performance and eat the damn bread already.

I’m NOT on the Atkins diet, so I enjoyed my plate of glorified gourmet mac n’ cheese very much. And DH recommends the seafood risotto. 😉