“I bought you a present,” Berck told me on the phone last week. “You should get it by the time I get home. I bought me a present too, so be watching for it.”

On Thursday there was a note on the door saying the UPS man had come and gone. On Friday there was a note saying he’d made a second attempt. There was also a note saying FedEx had made a SECOND attempt, and to sign and put back on my door if I wanted them to leave it. They apparently tried to deliver it again on Saturday, which was a nice day, and we had the door open, but they didn’t think we were home since we were in the study laughing uproariously at Top Gear. Berck was home yesterday, and when he went outside to water the plants, there was a note saying the UPS man had made his final attempt.

This meant that I had to go down and pick it up at the central office way down by the Citadel Mall. Berck could have done it, but I would have had to written a letter authorizing him to pick it up, because it was addressed to me. That and he’s up in Denver today sitting in on a simulator session. He took my car because it has a radio, and his has snow tires.

Last night I asked him where the heck I was supposed to pick up the package. “Just type the number in, and it will tell you.”

Google has this cool feature where you can type any FedEx or UPS package number into it, and it will connect you directly to the page with the tracking information on it from either company. Well, it’s supposed to do that. Here’s what happened when I did that:

Track FedEx package 9253 3798 6688
www.fedex.com

Okay, but, remember, it’s a UPS package, not a FedEx package. So I went to UPS.com. Every single time I go to UPS.com it asks what country I’m in, and every single time I tell it to remember that I’m in the USA. Then I put in my package number. Here’s what it said:

Tracking Number: 925337986688
Status: Not Available

So I called the 800 number. The automated answerer asked me to read out my package number. I did. The automaton said she was really sorry but she didn’t get it. I read it again. She apologized again and asked me to read it again. I read it extremely slowly. She suggested she connect me to a real live person. I said, “Thank GOD.” Why can’t they just let me type it into the buttons?

The guy I talked to asked for my package number again. I was beginning to memorize it. He asked if I’d been left a slip that said I could sign the slip and leave it. “This is my third attempt slip,” I said, “They’re not going to try to deliver it again.” He told me that I would have to go pick it up. “Yes, but where do I go to pick it up?” He gave me the address and told me how late they were open. I scribbled it down and then typed the address into Google. Google has this cool feature that you can just type in an address and it will give you a map of that location. It seems to like it best when you put in the street address and zip, so that’s what I did. (That and typing in “Colorado Springs, CO” takes a lot longer.) Here’s what I typed in:

911 emery cir, 80915

911 Emery Cir, Covington, KY 41011

You’ll notice the zips don’t even match. Fortunately, the first hit was for CitySearch.com, and it had the whole address, so I added the last line. Notice that I even have the 9 digit zip:

911 emery cir, Colorado Springs, CO 80915-3413

911 Emery Ln, Elkhart, KS 67950

We’re getting closer, since Kansas is just next door. So I went back to the CitySearch.com site, and clicked on the little link called “MAP.” It pulled up an Ask.com map showing me exactly where the UPS center was. It also gave me the correct spelling of Emory Ln. Google has the best spell checker I’ve ever seen; most of the time I don’t even make the vaugeist attempt at spelling something correctly, trusting my sturdy search engine will figure out what I really mean. But apparently, they haven’t hooked it up to Google Maps yet. Come on… I was just one vowel off. Vanna, I’d like to get a refund.

Now I just had to get down to the UPS center. The problem is that there isn’t a good way to get there. The most direct way is to go down Academy Blvd., the busiest street in town. So I got off the Interstate and got on Academy at its northern end. I stopped for every single light except one until I got to Dublin Blvd. Then I stopped for good. The intersection of Dublin and Academy is on top of a hill, and in my little car, I couldn’t see anything, but people were getting out of the right lane like their lives depended on it. Then the light stopped changing. Northbound Academy Blvd. traffic kept coming, but we weren’t going anywhere. Then a fire truck that said HAZARDOUS MATERIALS UNIT on it edged out into the intersection, went north a block, and turned around and came back up to the right lane everyone was getting out of. This took ten minutes, I think, while we sat there doing nothing. Finally, the light changed, and we all gushed forward. I glanced back to see if there were a wreck or something, but I couldn’t see a thing. What a time to be in a car without a radio.

I had to stop for most of the lights after that, but at least we weren’t stopped for extended periods of time. The people at the UPS center wanted to make sure I was who I said I was before they gave me my package. “Have a good day,” the lady said, “What’s left of it.” That’s for sure, I thought as I walked out into the near dark back to my car. I went home via the Interstate, a much better way to go, even though I had to drive from the east part of town to downtown in order to head north. The road backed up right before my exit, and I thought it was everyone from Nevada trying to get out of the exit lanes while the people trying to exit onto Woodmen were trying to get into them. I got into the right-most lane, but I soon found out why everyone was stopped when I found my lane blocked by two cars who had tried to get into and out of the exit lane at the same time in the same place. Can we institute some rule that before you get your drivers license you have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you know how to NOT crash into other cars and maybe condemn some people to riding the buses for life?

But when I opened my present, I was very pleased. Was it worth all of the above hassle? I’ll have to try it out to find out.

Berck still doesn’t have his present. He called FedEx, and they told him to put the signed sticker on the door and they would deliver it today. The sticker is still there.