A couple of weeks ago I ordered a personalized jean jacket to give to Sutton for her third birthday (11.17).
I bought it from a Chinese company called Woodemon. Ther package was shipped and tracked by SF-international.
Two days ago (Sunday, 11.10) the SF tracking info said the package had been delivered to HE’s Wilton abode…except it hadn’t been.
The delivery company was closed yesterday for Veterans Day, but after much online searching and suffering I managed to discover three photos taken by the delivery person — photos that made it clear the jacket had been delivered to the wrong location — a home painted bluish-gray with a grassy front yard plus a white mailbox with the street number and a tiny red flag. The carrier also took two photos of the package and the shipping label.
As the name of my condo community begins with the name “Wilton”, I went searching around for streets with that name…two of them…zip.
This morning I went to the Wilton post office and showed the boss (40ish dark-haired woman) the messenger photos, and asked if she or any of the mail carriers recognized the home in question. She said it looked like it was located on a street I hadn’t inspected — Wilton Acres. I went right over there and bingo…mystery solved! Two cars parked in the driveway. A small dog barking inside.
I rang the bell next to a shed door two or three times, and then rapped loudly on it. I noticed that the door was very slightly ajar so I opened it and stepped inside and knocked on the kitchen-adjacent house door three or four times. No response except for the dog.
I went back to my car to search for the occupants on Facebook (their names were on address labels inside the shed), and then all of a sudden a moustachioed Wilton cop was rapping on my passenger window. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
I got out, explained the basics, showed him the delivery photos and my ID etc. It turns out the occupant had a video security system that sent her video footage of me poking around, and so she called the fuzz.
The satisfied, calmed-down cops spoke with the home owner at her place of employment. Ten minutes later she drove up and went inside and gave me four white plastic packages — the jean jacket plus three others that contained scarves that also hadn’t been delivered to my address earlier this month and last month, despite notices saying they had been.
My name, address and phone number were clearly printed on the labels. If the Wilton Acres woman had any good-neighbor inclinations she could have easily called or texted and explained that she had some of my stuff, etc. I would have gratefully come over and picked them up, or we could’ve met somewhere. That’s what I would’ve done, trust me, if someone else’s deliveries had been left at my place.
But over a period of a week or two she did nothing. In her defense she leads a busy life and has kids and a dog and all, but still.
