Herself bought an item on the Interweb recently.

Nothing unusual there.  In fact Herself is always buying shit stuff on the Interweb.

As usual, she used my email address, so I got a cheerful email from the shop that they had received my/her order and the item had been packed and collected by Fastway Couriers.  They even gave me a tracking number so I could watch progress as it happened.

I checked the Fastway Couriers site and sure enough, there was the first message –

02/12/2016   13:18:55

We received the following consignment in our hub for delivery through Fastway Network

Lovely!  The package is on its way.

A couple of days passed and then I saw an update –

05/12/2016   11:39:57

Unfortunately, your parcel was misdirected when sent from our pickup depot and is not out for delivery with the local courier

Okay.  I suppose we all make mistakes.  At least they caught it and didn’t dispatch it to Outer Mongolia.

Then another message appeared –

05/12/2016   11:40:16

Your parcel is currently in transit between our ‘Dublin’ and ‘Wicklow’ depots.

Fair play!  Nineteen seconds to find my parcel which was apparently in the wrong place, take it out of the wrong place and put it in the right place and send it on its merry way.  Not bad work.  I had to admire them for that.

I checked again yesterday –

06/12/2016   05:48:42

We received the following consignment in our depot for delivery

Seventeen hours to travel less than fifty miles?  We’re certainly keeping to the speed limits?  Never mind though, the parcel is on its way.

Next message –

06/12/2016  08:03:08

On Board – The parcel is on board the courier vehicle.

Sound the fanfare!  It’s on its final leg.  The tension and anticipation is mounting.  I spend the day hovering around the front garden waiting for the parcel to arrive.

It didn’t.

I checked the web site again –

06/12/2016  16:36:29

We delivered a parcel which we were authorised to deliver without capturing a signature by leaving it in a safe delivery location

WHAT THE FUCK?

I read the message several times, just in case there was some hidden meaning.  The message was the same each time I read it.  What the fuck is a “safe delivery location”?

I went out to the front garden with a lantern, just in case.  I mentioned before how some courier companies like to just chuck things over the gate and how I had in the past discovered parcels under the car, in the window flowerbox or lying in the dog shit on the front gravel, so maybe my front garden was their definition of a “safe delivery location”.  I checked the gravel.  I checked on and under the car.  I checked the brambles and I checked up the trees.  No parcel.  The neighbours must have wondered what the fuck I was doing stumbling around in the dark peering into hedges, so now they know.

I checked the web site again this morning.  No new messages.  They apparently consider that they have fulfilled their side of the bargain and it’s now up to me to find their “safe delivery location”.

So where is a “safe delivery location”?  The local churches?  The cop shop?  Scrap the last – it’s never open.  Under a rock somewhere?  The local shop?  Next-door neighbour?  Down one of the old Avoca mine-shafts?  Up the bogs in a bog hole?

I honestly don’t know where to start.  I tried contacting the courier company but I can’t get through to them.  They do give a look-up thingy for the various individual drivers so I looked up the nearest bloke for this area.  His phone went straight to an answering service.  I hope he enjoys the message I left.

UPDATE!

Just got a call back from the courier.  He enjoyed the message.  He told me where my “safe delivery location” is.

Apparently it’s my black rubbish bin in the front garden.

*speechless*