The Search

This is a little long, but please stay with me.

I placed an order with Amazon last week, and because of the need, I had it shipped 2-day delivery. I received my notice that it would be arriving on the 19th, and thus I began the wait. On the 18th, I began checking the status of my order by tracking its shipping order. It had made it to Atlanta. Thursday morning at 5:52 it was in Unadilla which meant it should be making it to my house sometime that day. Hopefully, earlier than later. If I went to the door once, I went to the door a dozen times to see if I had somehow missed the doorbell and the box was just waiting to be brought inside and opened. It was never there. At 6:15, I checked. It was getting dark by now. Still no package. We ate dinner. 7:30 arrived and still no knock at the door. So I checked the status once again, and it read, “Delivered to front door at 6:52 p.m.” Hmm, I must have missed the doorbell or knock and so I went to the front door to get my package. Nothing.

Okay, so this wasn’t the first time it had happened. At least a half dozen times over the course of the last couple of years, I’ve either received a UPS package that belonged to one my neighbors or they have received mine. So I pulled on my overcoat and I got my trusty flashlight and out the door I headed. First to my neighbor’s house on the right. No package at their front door, so I rang the doorbell and inquired. Nope. No UPS delivery there. Went to my neighbor’s on the left. Same thing. So I ventured across the street and interrupted their in-house Bible study. Nothing. One last house, the vacant one also across the street. Shined my light on that porch, nothing there either. I must admit that about this time, I was expecting a law enforcement to come rushing up with his blue lights flashing. After all, it was pitch black and I was strolling people’s yards with a flashlight.

By this time it was pushing 8:00 and so I did the only thing left to do, I got on the phone and called the UPS toll free number. After going through a number of automated voices – each one telling me that my package had been delivered at 6:52 to my address, I finally got a live voice, who also told me my package had been delivered at 6:52 to my address. No doubt I was not agreeable.

After being put on hold too many times to remember and then transferred just as many if not more, I was told that I would receive a call from the Unadilla office the following morning no later than 9:00 a.m. 9:02 a.m., Feb. 20th, I picked up the receiver and began the process all over again. If I was going to beat the system and locate this package, I knew I needed to get an early start. Again, I was told each time “We have here that the package was delivered to your front door (and they gave my address) at 6:52 p.m. on Feb. 19.” “No, ma’am, it wasn’t.” Oh, even now just recounting this, I can feel my blood pressure rising.

Oh, did I mention that Amazon’s policy is to call and let them do an internal trace? Therefore UPS didn’t want to handle it. But no way was I letting this one go. They kept telling me the driver had left it at my front door, therefore I figured he alone could find at which front he had actually left it, and I was bound and determined he wasn’t getting off of my hook even if it meant he had to drive to my house and show me exactly where he placed it. Finally, I was put through to the Unadilla office where Teresa was able to speak to the driver – while I was on hold, of course, and she assured me he left it at the front door of the house – on the corner. Okay, so I don’t live on the corner. And being that was the first house I went to the night before and it yielded no results, we were still just as clueless – and package-less. This time she said she would just call me back.

Shortly, she did. She had spoken with the driver one more time, and this time, instead of telling me that my package had been left by the front door (at my address) at 6:52 p.m. on Feb. 19th, I was told that it had been left by the scooter of the house on the corner. So I called my neighbor, she walked out her GARAGE door and sure enough there it was. Since she was already outside, she walked it on over and hand delivered it to me. I called Teresa back at UPS and told her it was in my possession, and she thanked me for my patience (if she only knew) and gave me her personal number in case it ever happened again. Lord, please no.

So, as I put the phone down and returned to the prize box to retrieve its contents, I heard that still small voice deep within my spirit say, “So, why don’t you search for Me like that?”

Busted.

Just an ordinary moment…