They were allegedly delivered Tuesday. The "signed for" was "Jack," which must be my mail carrier, because another package or two left on my porch were listed as signed for by him.
Except: my bowls were nowhere to be found. I even went out after dark on Wednesday evening to look (with a lantern) just in case he'd left it on the little unused side porch. Nope.
My assumption is: the package was spotted on the porch by an enterprising thief, who decided to chance grabbing it. Sometime between 1:25 pm (when it says it was delivered) and about 6 pm (when I got home.
I'm....not happy about this. In the past, the mail carriers left packages for me on the front porch, no problem. (An especially good one I had would put the smaller ones between the screen door - which I do not lock regularly when I'm just away for the day - and the locked big front door. And she often left a slip noting there was a package and just took the bigger ones back to the post office. At one point I told her there was no need to do that, as the neighborhood seemed safe).
So anyway. Yes, I suppose there's an outside chance some weird random thing went wrong but I assume more likely that it was stolen. (Enjoy your bowls, jerk. I hope you were expecting an iPad or something).
So I decided to give another try. Maybe I should have waited but I was annoyed. (And yes, Amazon refunded me the money for bowls. I had mentioned it to a student who was hanging around before class and he said "Oh, they'll refund it, Amazon is super good about it, they have to be with as many thefts as there are now")
I reported it to the local police, for whatever that's worth, and I reported it to the postal inspectors. I doubt anything will come of it but I do want it on record that the theft - if it was - occurred. If I see more package thefts my next thing will be to request that the post office hold all packages for me if I'm not home (nearly everything I order comes from USPS these days) and if they won't do that, maybe I rent a PO box? Which is a pain and an expense but I don't know. (Getting stuff delivered to work isn't possible; our campus "post office" which is actually now an arm of Print Shop following the 2016 budget cuts is already overburdened)
But I wanted to try again.
So I ordered something I'd been thinking about for a while - a stuffed toy sea otter. (Those of you who follow me on Twitter know my usual handle is "Acerbic Otter" which is an anagram of my actual name). And I've also joked on there using similar photos:
I am 51% this
and 49% this
Don't push me.
But yes, sea otters are extremely cute and a stuffed one makes a nice mascot. And the ones were not a lot of money, so if the box went missing, no biggie (and I could probably get a refund, but I suspect Amazon will eventually refuse to do that if a person reports "too many" lost boxes)
So I ordered one. Not thinking that it would be delivered today. And when I realized it would, I thought, "Well, I'll be over at my office (grading) by then"
But I was slow and the mail was early and "Jack" was there at my door with the box and my other mail and it seemed churlish not to take it (especially since I saw him back up the truck - because he overlooked the package, I guess - and get the mail out of my box, and bring it up.
Oh well.
So here she is. I have named her Emma, it seems to fit; the scientific name of these things is Enhydra lutris, which I guess means "otter in the water" which seems....a bit redundant. But "Emma" is the closest NAME-name to that, and she looks a bit like an Emma anyway. (Also, there was an Emma in one of the Moominvalley books but I think she was actually large rodent and otters are....mustelids? I think?)
And since the natural-foods store was out (or seems not to be carrying any more, boo) the yellow-pea butter I like as a peanut-butter replacement, I ordered a couple jars off of Amazon. They are to come Tuesday so we'll see then. (And again, if they're stolen, ha ha on the crook, good luck fencing those)
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