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Adventures with UPS

Published August, 1997

By Tim Wood

I'm fortunate in that neither my job nor personal life has been hurt by the strike. However, if it goes on too much longer, everyone will be affected in some way, shape or form.

Generally, UPS has a pleasant connotation for me. I've lived in small towns most of my life and my varied interests often required that I buy some things via mail order. Small towns don't always have stores that stock the unusual things I want to pursue my hobbies.

In the musical "Music Man," there's a song about the "Wells Fargo Man," referring to the company which would deliver the much-anticipated musical instruments. I guess I should make up a song about the UPS truck.

Some of the boxes delivered to my address have elicited some strange looks from the men and women in brown. Some of them have even commented about it.

For example, I like to work on guitars. You don't find guitar tools just anywhere. So, I ordered some items from an outfit in California called "Luthiers Mercantile." Translation: "Luthier" is someone who builds and repairs stringed instruments. "Mercantile" is an old-fashioned word for a store.

The UPS man actually asked about that one. Usually, they just give me strange looks.

Mymodel rocket hobby has no doubt had a few delivery people shaking their head. The Postal Service gets in on this act as well. If I buy a rocket motor via mail order, the Postal Service requires that all sorts of scary stickers be placed on the box.

Once, a box with a four-inch square sticker saying "hazardous" was hung on the mailbox by the postman. My wife, Cheryl, commented that our neighbors must have had some interesting things to say about that when they drove past our house.

And like "Luthier's Mercantile," some of the rocket sellers have some strange names. I've received some large boxes with a bunch of hazardous stickers from a store called "Magnum." You might think that Magnum sells guns, but they actually sell sport rocketry products. Let me assure you that all of it is perfectly legal and no, there won't be any rocket motors blowing up in my garage, nor any satellites launched out of my back yard.

When the hobbies rotated into electronics, the delivery people again must have wondered what was going on. At least these boxes were much smaller than the rocket boxes.

But with an abundance of stores in Columbia and Nashville, I don't do as much mail order business. If Columbia doesn't have what I want, Nashville usually does.

One wonders what delivery people think about the items they deliver. I suppose they have a code of conduct which prohibits them from making any inappropriate comments about the packages they deliver.

But one could imagine the stories they could tell. "Hey look! Einstein on Fifth Street has bought another batch of test tubes!" Or, "You wouldn't believe the size of the box I had to lug up three flights of steps last week."

If there are any striking UPS people reading this, let me say that if you will just come back to work, I'll order something light and legal that's sure to make you scratch your head. And who knows? Maybe sometime I'll tell you just what's in those boxes.

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