What happened yesterday to me shouldn’t happen to any other person ever in the history of time. It wasn’t the worst that could have happened but the number of hours wasted and blood pressure fluctuations my body had to adjust for just weren’t any fun at all. Tonight my mom leaves for a trip out of town. For this trip she has to take a laptop which is going to be ultimately delivered to my sister. This laptop was supposed to arrive on the 13th but DHL delivers during the day and we weren’t home to pick it up.

I talked to Dell online Thursday to have them change the shipping address to my work location, but they hadn’t processed that as of yesterday afternoon. So since the flight is tonight, I had no choice but to ask them to hold the package so that I could pick it up.

So first what I did was googled their location which was listed as Inwood, NY. Me being the map-blind person that I am, it looked to me like it was in Brooklyn at first. So I hopstopped it and it said that I actually had to go all the way uptown to 207th street on the A train. But then DHL called my cell phone from a 516 number and this immediately rang alarm bells. That’s Nassau county, so why am I going all the way uptown?!

I was confused. I called DHL back and they asked “Are you familiar with the Five Towns area?” I said no. I had no freaking clue. Then she began rattling off directions. And then I mapquested the place.

I left work early. Got on the E train. Transferred to the F train at Union Tpke. Got off at 169th street which I don’t usually do but I did it yesterday so that I could get on the Nassau county express bus which would lead me faster to my home. I ran for the bus. I got off and ran for a few blocks. Put my messenger bag inside the house, jetted back into the car. Took 3-4 breaths. Plugged in my iPod, jumped into the car and started driving. Once I took the exit on the Cross Island Parkway I started waiting for Rockaway Blvd. to show itself. I rolled down the window and asked a woman driving a Dodge Intrepid who had also rolled down her window to smoke a cigarette (smoking sucks!) where Rockaway Blvd was. “Straight ahead, you’re going to go on a curvy narrow road.” I saw to my right blades of tall dead grass Above me an airplane, not unlike in movies, was landing at JFK, it roared onto the runway and soon I saw “FIVE TOWNS TOYOTA.” It looked desolate, but the lights were on the streamers were flying in the air, it was picturesque.

I go inside DHL after parking in the wrong area of the facility. The woman behind the counter says she needs my tag number not my last name or phone number or address to be delivered to.

“Really? You can’t look it up by my last name?”
A woman I’m not talking to responds.

“That’s just the way DHL’s system works. It doesn’t look up by last name, it looks up by tracking number.”
“Doesn’t that seem weird?”
“That’s just the way the system works.”
“Well your system is weird.”
“Oh really?”
“Really.”

After calling Dell’s automated line I get disconnected once, and then I finally get through; the machine gives me the tracking number. I write it down and hand it to the woman. She gives me my package. I leave Five Towns. I leave Far Rockaway. But the memory lives on.

Oh and I’m never, in my life again shipping with DHL (they don’t ship on weekends and their internal processes suck) and I’m never again purchasing a Dell (they have the best customer service but not as close to the results that you’d need in an emergency). For those wanting to stick with PCs, I’d suggest IBM’s new thinkpads. They have face-scan security in their newer line of products and their pricing is on-par with Dell’s.

Photo courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdw0rks/

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