UPS v. The Zooms

I'm pretty sure that this here post isn't going to be nearly as funny to anyone out there reading it as it is to a couple of foolios like us Zooms. And you kindof had to be there, I think.

Mr. Zoom had ordered some items for our home that were to be shipped via UPS. That sounds perfectly convenient, doesn't it? It did to me too.

So of course UPS tries to deliver these items during the exact hours that we Zooms are at the office. 3 times. Apparently this activates the UPS delivery quicksand. The harder you try to be in a place that the packages will be sent to, the faster they are sucked into the netherworld of BROWN.

What can Brown do for me? Brown can deliver the fucking boxes TO THE ADDRESS WE PAID TO HAVE THEM SHIPPED TO.

We now had to go to a central delivery area to pick up the packages. And because we both ordered in our own names, we BOTH had to be there with identification or else. There would be no convenience of one person picking up all of the packages.

Fine.

We left our respective offices early. We had to be at the UPS office by 6:00 p.m. when they closed. So we began our journey at 4:30 p.m. We headed out on one of the incredibly expensive toll roads we have out here. It's the only way to get anywhere on a Friday afternoon.

Mr. Zoom exits the toll road after paying $4.25 to the human in the silver box. One.Exit.Too.Late.

Realizing the error, we get back on the toll road going the opposite direction. And guess what? There's no exit for the road we want GOING THAT DIRECTION. So we exit the toll road and this time are faced with the personless station that won't let you go until the proper amount of money has been deposited.

This one was only $1.25, but it might as well have been 1.2 million. These booths DON'T take dollar bills. What they DO have is a change making machine. So one has to submit their paper money to the converter, which then vomits coins back out into this little tray. One must then take the coins and toss them into this HUGE basket and wait 30 seconds for each coin to make its way down into the counter like a bad carnival game. I've tried submitting more than one coin at a time, which leads to 2 quarters being counted as 1. Why they can't have the converter machine be the counting machine and just go from there?

I think it's because BROWN must have sponsored our toll roads.

This particular day, our counter decided it wasn't going to accept any nickles. Wait, it did accept them. About 5 of them, actually. But it didn't CREDIT us for the money so we couldn't drive away. And there was no person to complain to. So I dug in my purse for anything other than nickles and found about 462 pennies, 42 nickles and 2 dimes. THANK GOODNESS FOR THOSE DIMES.

We finally broke free of the money eating toll booth and got BACK on the toll road, vowing to learn from our last two mistakes.

This time, we were forced to exit at the road we had exited the FIRST time ($4.25) because when we got back on the toll road the third time? Yeah. We didn't know it, but we were to far down to catch the toll road exit to the road we needed.

And this booth was not tended by a human, either. When we had first come to this exit, it was from yet another toll road....so that one had people working it. This one was (obviously) a shorter distance, so silver brainless nickel eating box it was. We submitted a $5 bill (that's all the physical money we had left) and tried to feed those coins into the booth. This time, we dropped at least one quarter on the ground and were so SO frustrated that we didn't care. We were literaly throwing money at the machine, just hoping that at some point enough would make it in there to let.us.go.

We still had time. We were all kinds of frustrated...that laughing/crying kind of frustration, but we weren't going to give up. The worst part about the whole thing was that the building was high up on this hill, practically waving to us the entire time. There's nothing like being able to SEE the destination, but not being able to GET TO the thing.

We finally made it to the fortress that proclaimed to be the UPS customer pick up center. We wound the truck through the twisty paths and there it was! The delivery center!

I kept teasing Mr. Zoom, because I was super hungry and slap happy by now. I said "I can't wait to drive up and have the access gate closed on us! I will watch your white hot anger melt the metal!"

As we approached the entrance, I noticed the hours were posted in LARGE block letters: "Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 P.M.

I couldn't help but laugh and squeal "THEY ARE OPEN UNTIL 7! 7:00! Even on Friday! Look.At.That!"

Mr. Zoom tersley quizzed our counter Brown. He said "Are you REALLY open until 7? Because the internet and every person you call about your order says 6. They say you are closed at 6."

Brown didn't care. It's toll roads were doing great business!

Poor Mr. Zoom. He had worked soo hard to coordinate this whole journey. He even had to put up with me and the morning fight which increases exponentially with the amount of sleep I perceive I am being robbed of. I gave a pay-per-view quality fight this morning. And I'm someone who regularly argues with shoes just because they are in my way.