The destructive javelina vandals returned—but we were ready for them!
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Theft by wild animals
Javelina vandals caught on camera.
Continue readingFedEx delivery failure – boxes fall off truck
So, I’m expecting a couple of packages. The FedEx tracking site says they’re “on vehicle for delivery.” Yippee!
When your box falls off a FedEx truck
That morning, my niece is driving around some five miles from my house. She swerves around a small heap of boxes in the middle of a residential road and, without time to stop and look at them, she phones a family employee. “They should be moved before someone drives over them,” she says. The family employee drives over to attend to the boxes.
And lo! She notices that they are addressed to me! Amazing coincidence, everyone agrees. But wait—there’s more!
She sends her assistant to deliver the boxes to me. Two are mine, undamaged. The other two are to “Vincent,” but not to me. Some other Vincent, at Runway Media, on the far side of a neighboring city. I didn’t notice the addressee though, and opened one of the boxes. It contained fashion magazines. My own boxes contained books; these other boxes had the appropriate size and heft.
I got my boxes, despite the FedEx delivery failure. But what would the driver think when he couldn’t find the boxes logged in for the day’s deliveries? Are boxes logged in?
And more interesting: how can a number of boxes tumble off a truck? Doesn’t the driver shut and lock the cargo door when not loading or unloading? Federal Express is often considered the most expensive of the courier companies. Doesn’t that also mean the best?
I decided not to alert Federal Express right away. I wanted to see how they’d handle the disappearance of boxes logged for delivery. And I figured (hoped) that the fashion magazines were not urgent. (I was right.)
Days pass, and FedEx does not phone me. The FedEx tracking page continues to advise “on vehicle for delivery.”
Meanwhile, I tell the story of the FedEx delivery failure and coincidental acquisition of my boxes to several people. One was my sister, whom I told over a leisurely dinner. I happened to include the detail about the other Vincent’s boxes, which were still sitting in my garage.
“Wait. Runway Media? I know who those magazines go to!” my sister said. “My fashion designer friend just did a photo-shoot for Runway Media and is getting copies of the magazine.” She’d be seeing him in a few days and would bring him the boxes.
My sister’s fashion designer friend is not Vincent, and is not Runway Media, but the magazines are for him. We actually skipped a link by delivering the boxes directly to him but, hey—we’re more efficient than FedEx.
FedEx delivery failure
After a full week, and with the FedEx tracking page still advising “on vehicle for delivery,” I finally phone FedEx. “Alex,” a local supervisor, is not impressed and barely interested. He asks minimal questions. He promises, in a vague manner, to follow up with the driver. I’m left feeling that boxes falling off a FedEx truck is an everyday occurrence, a regular part of FedEx business.
I feel like documenting this FedEx delivery failure, not because the accident occurred, but because of the lax, slipshod, negligent manner in which FedEx handled the incident. Well, the company didn’t handle it. For the entire week I waited, it pretended nothing irregular happened.
Also, the series of coincidences is pretty amazing and a little funny.
FedEx is clueless. I’m left unsatisfied. I would have accepted an apology. The shipper might have accepted a refund. Oh, but the shipper was never notified either. Never told there were irregularities, that their packages vanished. FedEx hoped no one would notice. Yeah, clueless.
Even today, 12 days after my boxes fell off the FedEx truck, that embarrassing tracking page claims “on vehicle for delivery.” Has FedEx no shame? no pride?
A devious scorpion scam
Intruder on the loose. In the midst of all the excitement of the premiere of our National Geographic documentary, and all the television promotion that came from it, we’ve moved. From Las Vegas to the Phoenix area, from one desert to another, as if Vegas wasn’t hot enough for us.
The soundtrack at our Vegas house was primarily sirens, especially at night. These were often accompanied by the Doppler effect of percussive, droning police helicopters as they circled my neighborhood, even, seemingly, my house, with blinding searchlights flashing through my windows as if I might be harboring the criminal on the loose.
“Another criminal on the loose,” I’d always say. Between the sirens and helicopters, there was the pleasant, haunting whistle and distant rush of freight trains. That sound I liked.
In my new house, the audio is dominated by silence. I hear coyotes every night. They howl nearby and rush yipping in pack formation through my backyard. One bunny fewer hops through the yard at breakfast. I hear owls, too. And yes, I’ve seen the coyotes. Three of them together, waltzing across my backyard early in the morning.
Last week, walking toward my bedroom, I heard a crunch. Turning, I was horrified to see that I’d stepped on a giant scorpion. It must have fallen out of the rolled rug I was carrying. Yikes!
The scorpion was running in circles when I turned to see it. I should mention that, luckily, I was wearing moccasins at the time. I could have been barefoot. Even with soft shoes on, my left foot felt guilty and creeped out for hours afterward. As if I could feel the contact point.
I fled the scene to phone my nearby sister, who’s well-acquainted with these primeval exoskeletoned creatures, and who had her house “scorpion-proofed” after confronting too many of them.
“You left it unattended?!” she accused. “They’re very hard to kill. You probably only broke a leg or two. Cover it with a jar and a weight.”
I went back to examine the monster, remembering the live edible specimens I’d seen in Beijing earlier this year. It was a few feet away from where I’d last seen it, but still. Not moving. It seemed to be dead. I bravely stamped my foot loudly beside it. It didn’t move. I blew on it. Nothing. I snapped the photo above and left the house to get Bob at the airport.
“Watch out for the dead scorpion in the hall,” I told him, as he headed for the bedroom.
“Where?”
Gone! That was the moment I began to wish for the police helicopter searchlights. A giant scorpion on the loose. In my house. With reason to be vengeful. I wondered if I’d be able to sleep.
Obsessing on the fact my sister had mentioned: that they carry their babies on their backs. A whole brood could already be scampering into my shoes and sheets and up the curtains.
Two days later Bob found it. Dead, in the bedroom. Which is some distance from the site of the accident. Or was it the same scorpion…? Dead, it didn’t look so giant.
The next day I started when I saw a scorpion on the kitchen table. Bob had brought the mail in and a postcard peeked out from the bottom of the heap. It had a realistic photo of a scorpion on it, and advertised a scorpion extermination service. Hmmm… what a coincidence. Would a scorpion exterminator plant a few of the devils to scare new residents into its service? I tell you, it’s on the verge of working.
I cannot bang every shoe before I step into it. I cannot shake out the bed sheets every night, or scan the walls and ceilings for creepers. I can’t live like that. For now, I’ve decided to put them out of my mind and ignore them. At least until the spring, when they become more active. At least until I see another one.
And I’m saving that postcard.