I am a fan of Laurel and Hardy movies. One of their more popular films is called Sons of the Desert. In this film, they are members of a fraternal lodge called the Sons of the Desert. Part of their uniform is Fez with the name of the organization on the front. The official Laurel and Hardy fan club is named after this film. A few years ago, I was wondering if I might be able to purchase a Sons of the Desert fez. I discovered a company called Fez-O-Rama that makes them, but they don’t keep them in stock all the time. They have made limited runs of them in the past but were never available when I had checked. In mid-January of 2024 (this month as I write this), I was watching the movie Casablanca. When I saw Sidney Greenstreet’s character wearing a fez, it made me want to check to see if Fez-O-Rama had made anymore. I just happened to check it during the one week out of the year that they took orders for this fez. They limit their orders to a run of 50. On January 15, I got my wife to measure my head and I placed my order for a Sons of the Desert fez.
Because this was a special run, I didn’t know how soon I would get my fez, but they were able to process my order quickly. Soon, I got notifications that it had shipped. On Saturday, January 20, we were at the gym when I received a notification that the post office couldn’t deliver it that day because no one was at my house to sign for the package. When we got home, there was a note in our mailbox with tracking information saying that this was their first attempt to deliver and the package could be picked up at the post office starting Monday, January 22. Because it said that it was a first attempt, it wasn’t clear if they would try to deliver it again. I decided I would take the note to the post office to see if it was there on Monday during my lunch break. My wife would be at home so she would be able to sign for the package there if it happened to be delivered.
I gave the note to the man at the post office counter. He spent a lot of time in the back before he came back to tell me the package wasn’t there. He told me it was probably out for delivery. This was before the mail had been delivered to my house. But the package didn’t come in our mail. On the note, there was information on hold to schedule the redelivery of the package. I thought I would go on their website to do that or get them to hold it. As I went through the process, their site said the package wasn’t available for delivery. As I clicked around, it told me that this package was delivered on October 23, 2023, nearly 3 months before I had even ordered my fez. As I contemplated my next steps for a while, I eventually decided to check and see if the tracking number on the note matched the tracking number on the emails I had received from Fez-O-Rama. It turned out that the number was different. This is when I realized that when I was at the post office, my package was probably there. If I had given them the correct tracking number instead of the one on the form they left, I would have probably been able to pick it up then. When I went back to their website with the correct tracking number, I was able request that it be held so I could pick-up the next day. I figured that this was the safest option. Also, my wife was going to be home on Tuesday so we would be covered to have someone to sign for the package.
On Tuesday, I went to the post office armed with emails of my request to get the package held and the correct tracking number. I used my time with the postal worker to complain about the note they left with the wrong tracking information. The lady at the desk was polite and listened to me but nothing was going to be done about that error. When I gave her the tracking number, she looked it up and told me that it was delivered to our house about 10 minutes earlier. I sent my wife a message to check while I was still there. She found the fez in the mailbox and confirmed that it had been delivered. Without getting a signature. Like they could have done on Monday. Or Saturday.
