(Did anyone else love Nancy Drew books when they were young? I wrote the title of this post and now I feel as though I need to know whatever ended up happening between Nancy and Ned.)
So, for Jeff’s birthday I ordered him a rain barrel because that’s the sort of people we are now, the kind who gather their own rainwater. I also ordered him a book written by Cody Lundin so it’s possible that my husband might be passing into what is known as “prepper” territory. But that has nothing to do with this story because that book arrived safely in it’s package directly to my doorstep in two days thanks to my love affair with Amazon Prime.
The rain barrel, however, was nowhere in sight.
I found this strange as normally Amazon always delivers on their two day shipping promise and also because I had ordered a 50 gallon rain barrel that was taller than me and weighed almost half as much. It was as I peered around the corner of my porch to see if maybe I had just missed it that I realized YOU CAN’T MISS A 50 GALLON RAIN BARREL SITTING ON YOUR PORCH.
So I hustled inside to check the tracking status of my shipment and discovered that my rain barrel was listed as “in transit” in some place called “Ellenwood, Georgia” which I’ve never actually heard of but sounds delightful, maybe like a little Stars Hollow minus the horrifically annoying Lauren Graham. Maybe that’s why my rain barrel decided never to leave.
I went out of town, letting Jeff know that his present (which, at that point was still a surprise) was likely to arrive when I was out of town and that also it was huge and heavy and good luck with that.
I arrived home a few days later and there was still no giant rain barrel at my house. So I checked the tracking again and discovered that not only had nothing changed, now the word N/A appeared next to the estimated arrival date.
It was then that I began to worry.
So I attempted to contact FedEx, which as it turns out, is like attempting to contact the moon. It might can be accomplished but is it really worth all that effort for a few rocks?
It seemed as though my package was stuck in the good ole’ town of Ellenwood but I could hardly believe that it had just been mis-delivered there. I mean, how would someone not notice a giant rain barrel on their front porch? It’s not like you’d be all “got my purse, locked the door, GIANT RAIN BARREL, okay let’s head to the park!”
On the other hand, I couldn’t quite believe it was lost either because, well, how do you lose a giant rain barrel?
Finally I received an email from them that wanted approximately four hundred and seventy two specific pieces of information in addition to my tracking number in order to track down my package.
And the very last question asked me to please describe what the packaging used on the package looked like.
And I was all “I can not provide you with this information on account of how I never received said package and thus, have never actually seen it.”
I can’t even make this stuff up, y’all.
The next day I received a phone call from FedEx and the sweet guy on the other end of the line said “Mrs. KA? I just wanted to verify that it is, in fact, a 50 gallon rain barrel that we are attempting to trace.”
And I was like, “Yes that’s right. GIANT. RAIN. BARREL.”
This morning I received an email from Amazon informing me that my shipment was deemed undeliverable and they were refunding me for the full amount of it. I wasn’t worried about that because Amazon is always great about that sort of thing and so I knew they would take care of it.
But I can’t help but wonder what became of my rain barrel.
I mean, somewhere out there is a giant rain barrel with my name on it. What is it doing? Is it sad? Does it feel rejected, like those toys in Toy Story that the kid no longer plays with anymore? Did someone open their front door to find it blocking their path to the outside world and are now trapped inside their home cursing whomever left it there?
Personally, I like to picture it in a field somewhere, collecting rain, singing a wistful song about me like a scene from American Tale. And even though I know how very far apart we are, it helps to think we might be wishing on the same bright star…
Also, it totally rained a ton here. You know what we really could have used today? A GIANT RAIN BARREL.
(Disclaimer: I’m not bashing FedEx, they were really nice about the whole thing, don’t sue me.)
