FedEx Part Deux: "It's At The Dude's House."

Where was I? Oh yes, I was dealing with FedEx's inability to deliver the Green Destiny to my home. Insofar as last night was practice for the Mark Baruth And Friends thing, and I planned to use that guitar, along with a Godin LGXT synth-itar, at the gig, I wanted to have it for the practice. It seemed reasonable to me that, if I started talking to FedEx at 1pm and demonstrated a willingness to drive anywhere in the city, including their airport depot and East Side depot, that I could make this happen.

Note that I say that it seemed reasonable to me.

I won't bore you with the details of the four calls I made to FedEx between 1pm and 7pm. The first three people flat-out lied to me in entirely different ways. The fourth guy started to give me some spiel and I cut him off.

"I need you," said I, "to stop reading from your script. I need you to stop trying to cut the call time or hand me off to somebody who doesn't know any more than you do. I need you to work directly with me here and to connect me with an agent at the depot where the item will be stored tonight. I have expectations regarding your abilities and engagement that are not being met and if you do not meet them I will pursue this until I have received proof of disciplinary action from your superior." This is not how I like to deal with people. I'd prefer to be friendly and respectful, not turn into CorpSpeakDrone-3000.

Unfortunately, the reason the drones get ahead in the corporate world is because their verbiage is very effective. Two minutes later I was speaking to someone with a rural Ohio accent at the depot. He agreed to look for the package and call me when he had it in hand. I liked his attitude. Problem was that the depot closed in 70 minutes and it was a 35 minute trip. When I didn't hear from him in 20 minutes, I packed John into the Town Car and we went on an adventure.

"Baby, baby, baby, baby, right on time," he sang in the back seat as we trundled along the mostly-closed lanes of Routes 70 and 670 downtown. When we arrived at FedEx we had to go through security. I'm not kidding. It was like the airport. However, since FedEx is in the business of preventing theft and violence at their facility, not giving Somali terrorists working undercover at the Columbus airport all the pictures of white girls naked they've ever wanted, they just use a metal detector, not a millimeter-wave.

At some point I managed to step on the clone's foot in my cordovan MacNeils which caused him to start crying. About twenty minutes after I arrived, a small truck arrived at the waiting area carrying the fellow with whom I'd spoken on the phone. Nice guy, eager to resolve the issue. But he had bad news.

"Jack, we don't have your guitar... the driver, ah, did not return to the depot tonight." We looked at each other for a minute.

"So if he didn't come back to the depot, and he owns the truck..."

"I know what you're going to say, but..."

"It's at the dude's house."

"Strictly speaking, it's still in FedEx custody, it will be fine."

"My guitar is sitting outside the guy's house in a truck locked with a $10 padlock."

"Uh, yeah." And that was that. Despite the fact that I had been repeatedly reassured by FedEx personnel on the phone that the driver returned to the depot every night, the fact of the matter is that my guitar is at the dude's house.

I'm not (that much of) an idiot, and I'm reasonable. If the Green Destiny is damaged in transit, PRS will build me another one just as good. It's a factory-new item, it's not irreplaceable, it's not the last Brazilian Rosewood fretboard in the country, everything is likely to be fine.

Still. So far I've spent five hours and driven sixty miles to not get a package. Today I'll drive another thirty miles to the place where it's supposedly being delivered by noon. I'm not holding out much hope.

Again: FedEx Ground: Not even once.