Friday, April 30, 2010

Blinkered vision

Last weekend I ordered a book from Amazon - oh, the fatally easy one-click ordering! - and realised as I hit "buy" that it would arrive when I was away from home. Never mind, I thought - it's a paperback; it's going to fit through the box. Nae problem.

Later that day my pal, knowing the hunt I had had for a particular scarf, rang me from her foray to deepest England to tell me she'd found one and was posting it. "I'll be away ..." I said, but she reassured me. It was small and light and in a small envelope. It would fit through the letter-box. Again, nae problem.

We arrived home on Wednesday afternoon to find the familiar post-card from the postie. "You were out". Indubitably. I would have to wait till next morning to find my parcel - for it mentioned only one. What, I wondered, had become of the other one?

Yesterday morning I found out. The postie - or whoever prepares mail for his round - had fastened my book and the envelope with the scarf together with one of the Post Office elastic bands that tend to litter the doorstep. But the postie hadn't removed said band this time, despite the fact that individually the book packet and the scarf envelope slid easily through the box. No, he had solemnly written that this parcel was too big to go through and that I would have to collect it.

Dead convenient, no?

5 comments:

  1. This fair brightened up my day!

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  2. How frustrating! But there are other wonderful posties out there. My friend in Linlithgow reported that her postie came round in the evening to deliver a parcel because they hadn't been in earlier. :)

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  3. Hello again Chris. I'm back online and happy to call in and catch up. This is such a good story; such a frustrating experience for you; such fun for the rest of us to enjoy the literal rather than lateral thinking of your postie.
    Not pertinent to your post, but I hope not impertinent, I wondered if you had read Colm Toibin's Brooklyn. If so what you thought of it? I posted on it today and would be interested in your take on the book. Anyway good to be back and thanks for the good natured head-shaking about postie approaches to letter boxes. What was the book?

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  4. Hi, Jim - no: I haven't read "Brooklyn". Do you recommend it? The book I was buying was Amanda Craig's "A Vicious Circle" - I'll post a review when I read it. There's a wee queue of books, though!

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  5. That's frustrating for you but at least your packages arrived safely.

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