A Sodding Potato Masher

I had another remarkably foolish conversation with Canada Post, today:

"Okay, we've tried to deliver that package five times, now. Your buzzer number isn't on the board."

"I know. That's why I've given it to you several times." (Oh, no. Not this again! But it gets worse.)

"Well, the driver said he buzzed, and no-one answered."

"Which is it? Could he not find the number, or did I not answer?"

Canada Post sniffed at me--not just the woman on the phone, but the entire bleeding company. "Maybe you weren't home."

"Sad as it may seem, I'm always home."

"Well, we're not making any more attempts."

"You're effing kidding me."

"Don't swear at me. I don't have to listen to you swear at me."

"I said 'effing.'"

"That's swearing."

"The fuck it is." I hung up.

Now, here's the killer: I sent a courier to pick up the package, and there was a buzzer code written on it. Not my buzzer code, but, hey.... I wish the Canada Post lady had been around when I saw that. She'd have learned a thing or two about swearing.

There ought to be a special word for that sort of behaviour--that arrogant, condescending, insufferable stupidity. "Our service doesn't stink: your nose is too sensitive." "We didn't drop the ball: you threw it crooked." "We screwed up? Puh-lease: it was your screwdriver!"

Inpompetence, that's what it is: pompous ineptitude, lightly braised, on a crispy incompetent shell. It's pronounced as it looks, but you spell it D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R.

I don't mind having to spend most of my life indoors. Really, I don't. Some things are a bit tough to get, without going out for them (ever tried to order a Slurpee online? Or, worse: how about a plunger? If you can get it the same day, it costs fifty bucks. If you can't, forget it. When your loo's blocked, some time next week is not good enough). Anyway, some things are hard to get, but hard isn't the same as impossible. You can make something resembling a Slurpee with crushed ice and syrup, and pizza boys can be coaxed into picking up plungers. With a little innovation, life is fine. But then, something like this comes along--Christ! I paid twenty bucks so a kid on a bike could ride four blocks for me. Why? Because some cunt at Canada Post couldn't transcribe a four-digit buzzer code onto a parcel.

What was in the parcel, after all that? A potato-masher. Not even an electric one: I'm talking about a wee metal grid on a stick. Let's do the Mastercard thing:

Potato masher off eBay: $1.49
Shipping from Windsor to Vancouver: $3.99
The supreme bumblefootedness of Canada Post: pricey.

I was so angry I kept taking breaks from my novel to imagine all the nasty things I should've said to that Canada Post lady. I made Arthur shout at two Eastern European butchers, and vandalise their shop. (According to the outline, he was only supposed to visit them, and get pushed into buying too much meat.)

It's Friday tomorrow. This week's slipped away too fast. I can't remember it at all. Maybe nothing happened.