Bill Roper's Journal

The above almost scans to the last line of the chorus of "The Rainbow Connection", which is a lovely song and does not deserve to be associated with what I'm thinking right now.

So you may recall that last week, UPS managed to misplace my Next Day Air tax return information that was coming back to me from the accountant so that it arrived three days late on a trip here from Evanston, which is only about eleven miles from here. I was told that it was a small package and easily could have gotten lost. Where exactly it had gone to hide for three days was never revealed to me.

Because our toilets are old, first-generation, low-flow models, I ordered three new toilets from Amazon to replace them, prompted by the leak in the ceiling in our family room when I was plunging recently. Today, five boxes arrived and were placed in the garage by our very helpful and friendly UPS man. (Really! I appreciate it!)

Now those of you who are not math challenged might wonder how five boxes relates to three new toilets and that would be a fine question. What I had in hand were two-and-a-half toilets. The enormous box containing the bowl for one of the toilets was not there.

I went to my Amazon orders list. All three tracking numbers showed as "Delivered".

I called UPS. They explained that there should be six tracking numbers for six boxes. And when I checked, I discovered that there were indeed different tracking numbers on the bowls and the tanks.

So I got on the chat line with Amazon and got the missing tracking number, suggesting that it might be good if they provided two tracking numbers when two boxes were shipped. The rep agreed.

And checking the new tracking number with UPS, it showed as "Out for delivery". Ok. Why it would not be delivered with the other five boxes was a bit of a mystery, but let's see how this plays out.

I checked again a few minutes ago. The bowl of toilet number three is now listed as "Delay", with the additional notation that "A required security check has delayed delivery."

What does that mean? The TSA has decided to perform a pat-down search on my toilet bowl?

Enquiring minds would like to know...