Rant 'n Rave

I love me them internets. I can order anything for Christmas (I started Black Friday and was a statistic on Cyber Monday), and all I have to do is wait and it will arrive in the mailbox or on the doorstep.

Or will it? Huh?

On November 30, I ordered a slew of sock yarn and a sock pattern from Herrschner's online craft store. Spent over $30, y'all. There's an order-tracking system whereby they reroute you to the USPS tracking site. And lemme tell you what the two sites said: The order was fulfilled on December 3. The package apparently arrived in our town at the ***** zip-code post office on December 8. That's right, folks, DECEMBER 8, as in LAST THURSDAY. It is now Wednesday, the 14th. I do not think I was supposed to pick up the package, for I never received a yellow slip summoning me to the p.o.

The mail has been bizarre the past two weeks or so. I could understand why nothing showed up last Friday, it having been a blizzard. But then, apparently nothing came on Saturday until late at night; after going out five times to see if the mail was there, we gave up looking. We found it Sunday. Monday there was no delivery, even though I saw the truck on our street. And what's worse, when the mail has shown up lately, half of it has belonged to other people, either neighbors or huge, egregious mistakes like addresses on Rillbank Terrace. Other neighbors have been complaining, too.

USPS must have put on a bunch of completely untrained temporary staff to cover the extra bulk of the holiday season. I can understand their need, but during such an important season when people are spending a lot of money on packages that really need to be delivered to them and not somebody else, hiring untrained extras is a big gamble bound for disaster.

Tuesday, no luck but one envelope (fortunately, that one was correct and did contain a couple of Christmas gifts I'd ordered. But no yarn). Wednesday, a few regular items, but no box of sock yarn from Herrschner's. If the postal delivery person is giving us everyone else's mail, to whom did he give my Christmas stuff? So I ask you, people of our little town, it's been a friggin' week since the box came to the ***** post office, so it MUST have been delivered by now, and WHICH OF YOU HAS MY YARN? And what the heck do you think YOU'RE gonna do with it? (String it on your packages?) And I'm still missing stuff from Amazon and Land's End, but I ordered those items way after the yarn, so those probably shouldn't be here yet and, while I'm panicking about the yarn, I'll give those the benefit of the doubt. At this rate, if a miracle happens and the yarn does arrive, it will be too late for me to make the zany socks, which I'd intended as gifts. I am too much of an inexperiened "knit-tard" to make 'em up fast. I'm worried my whole plan has fallen altogether by the wayside--no pun intended.

So what do I do now? Go door to door asking the neighbors (and everyone on Rillbank Terrace) if they've seen my Herrschner's box? Go to the ***** post office and harrass them? Attack the mail truck and demand an explanation?