Just saying. The company has, on occasion, delivered a package to us. Sometimes there has been a guy who knew his way around. More often whoever is delivering it tries a neighbor, leaves it unprotected in the rain, or otherwise screws up. I have cancelled orders online if the only delivery option was FedEx. Some days I really cannot handle the frustration.

Like today.

This afternoon, they knocked at our tenant’s door while we were home, left a “delivery attempt” sticker (no address, no addressee, no tracking number, no certainty that the missed delivery was of my laptop) and—did I mention?—we were home!

Speaking of not having a tracking number . . . it would have been nice had someone alerted us that the package was coming today. Alas. No email from FedEx, nothing from Apple. Nothing.

Our neighbor brought us the FedEx tag.

I looked up their number online. And then the computerized answering system. Well, you know how that goes. I had no tracking number. None of the key elements the computer wanted me to read slowly were on the slip. Eventually, after some loss of temper and dialing zero, “You would like to speak to a customer service representative. Is that right?” And I talked to an actual real person told me there was absolutely nothing he could do.

I said he could look up my address and confirm that the delivery was intended for me. Oh, yes, he could do that. Sure enough. It was my computer on the truck. It’s in Astoria now, or will be soon. No, I can’t go get it. It will be delivered tomorrow by 4:30. Or around 4:30. Or not. So we will be home watching all day tomorrow.

The inconvenience of modern technology. Especially communication. Trust me, as a 40-year high school teacher, I can assure you.

Okay, then a very polite, well-spoken young woman called me—how did she get my home number? All is not forgiven, but if I have my computer back tomorrow (between 10 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.), I will be in a much better mood.

Then there was the incident with the out-of-state neighbor putting up an eight foot fence a few feet from all the windows on one side of our house. These people are running a commercial rental and have already aggravated the homeowner north of them and east of them. Today was our turn.

So for this I borrowed a computer to blog?