I Got Your Package Right Here

One of the most interesting challenges with living on the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere is receiving packages from UPS, FedEx and the Post Office. And let me tell you, between my wife and I, we get A LOT of them, every single day, especially since I order everything humanly possible from Amazon.

The crux is that we live on the far edge of a huge private community, leaving these delivery people with a 20-minute uphill battle from the county road to get up here, so it's not a slam dunk that things will show up on our doorstep.

For starters, the Post Office won't come up here at all, but we've worked out a deal with our mail carrier (Michele) to wrap our packages in plastic bags and leave them behind our enormous mailbox, which is - you guessed it - on the county road. That's 40 minutes of driving for me to go get them. Imagine how much writing I could get done in that time!

Then there's FedEx.

The Ground guy (John) comes up here all the time, no questions asked, even though it's clear he doesn't want to. He usually leaves packages on our doorstep, rings the bell and runs like crazy in escape mode back to his truck. But if I hear his truck pull up, I'll go outside and chat with him because he sounds EXACTLY like Adam Sandler. No kidding. It's hilarious.

But Lori, the FedEx Express lady, is another story, and it's anyone's guess what she'll do. Sometimes she actually shows up, after which we usually pop open a bottle of Champagne. But at other times, she'll sneak things (usually FedEx letters and pouches) into our mailbox without letting us know. And by 9:00pm, with crickets chirping outside, we figure out she's not coming. So it's a 40-minute trek the next morning to go get them.

On a few occasions, Lori has called us to ask that we come buy her HOUSE (a delightful mobile home off the county road) to retrieve them. "You have to pick up your mail anyway, don't you?" she'll ask. She doesn't understand that the reason we purchased a mailbox the size of Cowboys Stadium is so we could pick up the mail just once or twice a week.

One time Lori left me a voicemail saying she had placed the important package I was looking for in the passenger seat of the Chevy Blazer parked at her house, and I could go get it there. Classic!

But the best delivery service up here is UPS. Seriously.

When we finished this house in 2000, I decided to just order a DVD from Amazon and see if it actually showed up. And lo and behold, a couple of days later, we saw a UPS van coming up the mountain with a trail of dust flying behind it. And when the driver arrived, he introduced himself as Henry, gave me his cell number, and told me we could coordinate whenever the roads were covered in snow or mud, as his one-wheel-drive van wouldn't make it up these steep roads, especially the last half a mile to our house.

Now, that hasn't stopped Henry from TRYING to make it up here, and I've had to use our ranch truck (4WD with big honkin' mud tires) to tow his van out of the mud, snow or ice. You gotta love him for the effort!

Henry is such a great guy, in fact, that he often collects packages from one or both of the FedEx carriers and brings them up here along with his own. They owe him big time.

Then there was the occasion, five years ago, when Henry invited me to join his fantasy football league, and I accepted the offer. Good thing because it's the most fun FFL group I've ever been a part of. In fact, I just now picked up a couple of players off the waiver wire!

Anyway, the moral of the story is: if you're going to send me a package, please go UPS. I'll be thinking about you quite fondly afterwards.

Cheers!