My So Called Life: Delivery Quixote

I recently upgraded to a new iPad for my photography.  Coming out of that was a pair of deliveries that were canceled for very different reasons.  One was a box to ship my old iPhone 11 to the company that Apple hires for handling trade-ins.  I arranged the trade-in the same day I ordered my new iPad, and when I picked it up in the store, the Apple Store employee completely re-worked my order to save me money and did trade-in right there.  Frankly I could probably turn that whole experience into another article, but suffice it to say everything was coming up Mikey.

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Second was a pair of USB-C cords I’d ordered off Amazon after realizing “Oh hey, your new device uses a cord you don’t have and the one it came with isn’t long enough.  You might want to pick up some more.”  I put my order through, and for some reason it was hit with shipping delays almost as soon as I ordered.  In fact, here, let me show you what the tracking looked like.

To answer the obvious question, I have absolutely no idea what happened.  The company selling the cords didn’t even know!  I actually received an automated message from there asking if I was satisfied with my purchase and if I could leave a review of the product.  I messaged them back and asked “How do I review a product I never received?  You guys do know my order was never delivered, right?” They responded and thus did I discover that they, in fact, had absolutely no idea.  But anyway, I ordered a different set of cords that were actually cheaper and just waited for my refund.

Then, one day I get home from work to find a “Sorry we missed you” notice from UPS.  Odd … everything I was expecting to receive had been cancelled and I had no other orders on the way.  Nobody I know had given me any indication they were sending me anything so I had no reason to expect any sort of delivery (side note: this happened before my correspondence with the seller) and yet I had one.  All I could think was, maybe the company I’d ordered the USB-C cords from had figured out an alternative shipping method.  I figured out where I had to go to pick up my package and made plans to get it that weekend.

Unfortunately, it was at a pharmacy near Shubie Park, so I had no direct way to bus there from home.  Still, I grabbed the bus that Saturday afternoon, made the roughly 25 minute walk the rest of the way,  and took possession of my package.

Almost immediately, I noticed that the box was oddly light.  It also didn’t seem like a box that would contain 6 foot USB-C cords.  Odd but not a big deal.  After leaving the pharmacy I noticed the next bit of strangeness.  The box wasn’t sealed.  So I opened it up and, after a moment, everything became clear and I couldn’t help but laugh at what I was seeing.

It was the box I was supposed to use to trade in the iPhone 11 that I had already traded in.  The trade-in order that was supposed to have been canceled wans’t … and I had gone out of my way to pick up an empty box that I had no use for.  I had essentially chased a windmill and come up empty, so I shook my head and did the only thing I really could.  I threw the box in the garbage, went back into pharmacy, bought an energy drink and caffeinated myself as I waited for my bus back home.

What can I say?  Sometimes all you can do is stop, shake your head, and think “Yup, that happened.”