A Record Journey

I went on a little shopping spree last week for some new tunes, ordering some records from a reputable online music store. Like a little kid who just ordered PlayStation 5 from Amazon, I’ve been anxiously tracking my order on the fine United States Post Office website.

I cannot make the following story up. 

On 8/11 I placed my order.

On 8/12 the retailer delivered my records to the USPS origin facility in Louisville KY. 

So far so good.

On 8/13 the USPS sent my records to their facility in Pontiac MI, a 390 mile drive from Kentucky. About 300 miles into that Kentucky to Michigan drive, my records passed within just one mile of my house. But like Halley’s Comet passing by earth, it may as well have been 39 million miles away.

A day later, 8/14,  the Post Office sent my tunes 90 miles south to the postal facility in Toledo, about 10 miles from me as the crow flies. 

Oh boy I thought, I’ll get my records days before the estimated delivery day, 8/18.

Then on 8/15 the Toledo processing center sent the records back up I-75 to a place called Capac, Michigan, not to be confused with C-Pap or Z-Pack Michigan. Capac is another 113 miles from Toledo, and some 48 miles north and east of their Pontiac visit two days earlier. 

On 8/16, the Capac post office sent my records to the Detroit postal facility. I was feeling confident, as they had finally stopped traveling north, away from my Vinyl Resting Place, (this is what I call the room where my record player lives).

At 9PM, still Saturday 8/16, my confidence was shattered, as my music had just been transported north to (drum roll) Pontiac, Michigan, again. I was beginning to feel like Don McLain when he sang “the day the music died”. 

At each one of these stops, I assume someone had to pick my package up and scan it in order to provide me with the tracking information, as well as to know what to do with it. My records, along with scads of other freight, were being shifted among various trucks en-route to a myriad of destinations. I was recalling the American Tourister ads from 1980, you remember, when the baggage handler was a Gorilla who destroyed the suitcases. I sure hoped that the box my records were packed in didn’t look like that. 

The estimated delivery date was 8/18, but the tracking tool was telling me that my musicians remained locked in the back of a truck still in Pontiac, MI.

The trail seemed to have gone cold. Should I consider hiring Jim Rockford or Thomas Magnum PI before it’s too late. If Stephen Hawking were here, perhaps he could explain this black hole that has eaten my records.

Then at 12:04AM on 8/19 my phone pinged. A text from the Post Office that my package was now in route to its next destination. My heart was beating faster; could the next stop be back in Toledo?

The next thing I remember was a furry bump to my head around 5AM as Sophie the wonder cat alerted me to two missed texts. The first came at 1:52AM when the tunes arrived in Toledo, and another at 4:58AM when they were transferred to Monclova, my home town. 

Things were happening fast. A text came at 6:22AM informing me that they were finally out for delivery. And a final text at 10:35AM declaring that Patsy, Johnny, Toby, and George were outside my front door, patiently waiting for me to let them in. 

My fears about the gorilla baggage handler abated, as the package was in fine condition.

Both Google Maps and Waze tell me that it’s a 300-mile drive from Louisville to Monclova, but as far as I can tell, my records have traveled about 700 miles.

So the lesson and the moral of my story for you, my HumbleDollar friends, is to never get driving directions from the United States Postal Service. 

Have a great day.