Wet box

Wait, wait, wait. Don't go jamming for the back button on your browser, this update is 100% safe for work--or is it, now that I've pointed out the double entendre in the title?

Last week, I was checking out one of my favorite sites, SlickDeals (which is now in my Links section) when I came across a deal that was too good to pass up: Call of Duty, a World War II combat game that got rave reviews from my online gaming pals, for $15, including shipping. So I ordered it, and went about my business for the next few days.

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon. The package with my new game arrives, and it's too big to fit in my mailbox. It's pouring rain out--what's a postal carrier to do? Did he set the package inside the storm door to my enclosed front porch? That would be ideal--it'd stay nice and dry, plus all the unsupervised delinquent little punks in my neighborhood wouldn't be able to stare at the package and have several hours between the time the package arrives and the time I get home from work to figure out the best way to steal it. (My suggestion: walk up, grab it, calmly walk away. My house sits empty, after all, and it's not like my neighbors would give a crap--they'd just be happy the little hellspawns were messing with someone else.) But no, that would be too easy and too convenient for me. Did he leave one of those little notes on my door for me to go pick it up at the post office? Of course not--that'd keep it safe and dry, and while it wouldn't be quite so convenient, the post office is only a couple of blocks away.

No, this waste of space of a mail carrier leaves the package sitting right outside on my front steps. For anyone in the world to pick up and walk away with. In the pouring rain. I don't know if it's because I didn't leave him a Christmas bribe tip or what, but just look at the condition I found my package in when I got home from work last night.


The outer box after several hours of exposure to the rain.


The invoice. Wet through despite being wrapped in plastic.


The inner box got so wet that the bottom edges began to curl up and tear.


So wet you can easily see the water still on it.

It was bad enough that they forgot to restart my mail after my Christmas vacation (when I complained while picking up the mail, the person at the desk said that was on the carrier too), but this is ridiculous. I'm headed over there after work with these photos to complain. The only reason to be nice at all is that the game itself was shrinkwrapped and in a plastic CD case, and installed and played just fine. Nothing pisses me off more than incompetence (deliberate or not).