Here’s a bit of fun for a Saturday morning that fits into the ‘how to get a delivery to Symi’ chapter of the next book – which I’m not planning as yet – and some unrelated photos to go with. A couple of weeks ago I ordered a birthday present for Neil. (It’s on the 8th of September so you’ve still got time.) The thing I wanted was found in England and so I did an online order to a company I’d never used before. And here we go…
First of all the company accepted my card and payment was made, and then they contacted me to ask me to call them to run through some security checks as I was using a card that was not registered in the same country as my address. Unfortunately the number they had me to call was one of those 0898 things where you can so easily call up a sexy chat line by accident. So I am told. But no, it wasn’t, but it was similar and I was unable to access it as the country the phone number was registered in was not the same as the country I lived in. So…
I emailed them and explained that I couldn’t do that, but maybe they’d like to call me at their expense, and I gave them my phone number and waited for the phone to ring so I could answer with ‘Hi, this is Chuck and I wanna play (calls may be recorded and are charged at the premium rate of £4.67 per hour plus V.A.T. your investment can go up as well as down) what’s your name, sexy?’ But sadly they didn’t ring but emailed me back instead. So…
I emailed them again and explained that we don’t have an address as such, not many roads around here have street names (which is the same for two thirds of the world apparently) and I am known to the post office staff and most couriers, the port police, the national police (for all the right reasons) and can get at least one local papas to verify me, and here’s a photo of the house. I also offered to pay using my other card which is registered in Canada but that didn’t help. They were very impressed with the photo of the house and so believed me and said they would send the thing on to me, tout suite. So…
Another email came in and this had a tracking number and a site link so I could track the progress of the thing on its journey. A couple of days later I had a look and found out that the thing had left Brighton and was at “Gatwick -We have your parcel and it’s on its way to you.” And the next day: “Birmingham -We have your parcel and it’s on its way to our depot” where, later the same day: “Birmingham- Your parcel has left the United Kingdom and is on its way to Greece.” Wow, that’s good to know. I assumed it was flying to Athens but no, its first stop was: “Best (eindhoven)- The parcel is in transit on its journey to local delivery destination.” This was the same day, so it must have flown to Germany or else someone drove very fast. And then…
Two days later is was: “Budapest -The parcel is in transit on its journey to local delivery destination.” Which is again ironic as that’s where we are going in December. But it gets spookier as the very next day it was at Bucharest, where we were a couple of years ago. I imagine that it’s got a hire car by now and is driving across Europe to enjoy the scenery. If so, it had a sleepover somewhere between Romania and Greece as it took two days to drive to Thessaloniki where it did some sightseeing before heading down to Athens the following day. And then…
Well, then it left its car with Budget and got on the Blue Star, possibly calling in at Symi but, the follow day arriving at: “Rodos – The parcel is in transit on its way to its final destination.” I’ve seen that film and it’s very scary. Luckily the thing arrived safely at the Rodos depot later that day and then got itself a lift: “Rodos – Your parcel is on the vehicle for delivery.” Woohoo! It’s nearly here. It’s going to need a holiday to get over that journey. But then, the final track of the list…
“Greek Islands – Unable to Deliver”
What? Which Greek island has it gone to now? Bloomin’ traveling ‘thing’ in a box… Ah wait. Ironically (number three) Neil found it at ACS and luckily didn’t open it or read the ‘From’ address too carefully. So, it’s now recovering in the wardrobe and is all in the same pieces it was when it left Brighton.
There you go, and here I go – have a good weekend.
