delivery fail.

I’m only missing one thing from completing the caad10 build.  the osymetric chainrings that thomas craven shipped from north carolina, last week.  but of course, that freight truck didn’t make any check-in’s as it drove straight across the country, so the online tracking remained the same.  the package left, and that was it.  it had a delivery estimate date of july 14th, today.  yesterday, the fedex tracking changed, reading that the package was now in sacramento, california, presumably in a sorting facility for northern california.  cool, now it’s at the south san francisco, “local” fedex facility, even though it’s another city away.

I could never predict fedex deliveries.  I received a handful of packages in the past that were delivered later in the day, around 5-7pm, near the end of the driver’s shift.  sometimes it was in the middle of the day.  I paced through my apartment, silently, waiting for a door chime, a knock, or the sight of a fedex truck.  it was 10:19am, it seemed pretty early for a fedex delivery to me.  so, I decided to go upstairs for a quick second and check up on my family’s dogs.  I came back down and pulled off some crazy impossible x-ray vision…well, not really.  there’s a window above the building’s main entrance, and a car parked in front of the place.  the car’s door reflection is the building’s door.  and then a sinking feeling came over me as I saw the sticky note attached to the door.

the fedex truck was driving away, of course, hitting the green light at the corner.  he was gone.  I walked, defeated, to the door.  the slip said 10:20am, it was now 10:22.  I had missed the only package I have ever waited for.  previous to this, everything was shipped to my workplace, where packages were just left at my desk if I had stepped out.  but having a package shipped to a home address was completely different.  an impossible, 1-man operation, where absolutely everything had to be ideal.  no sound so you can hear the doorbell, or a knock.  no bathroom access because if the delivery came right when you were in the middle of a shower or shouting at the toilet, what would happen then?  or if you wanted to fry some bacon and eggs for brunch, thinking that was a good idea because you hadn’t had bacon and eggs in a while, and if you didn’t do something with the eggs soon, they’d go bad, then the sound of the sizzling bacon would mask any faint sound of a delivery.  and heaven forbid if it was 10:19am and you wanted to check up on your family’s dogs.

I grabbed the tag off the door and called the number.  after a long-winded, lame conversation with a fedex robot, I was finally able to talk to a real person.  he was pretty helpful, but went through the motions of apologizing every other sentence which really made me want to punch him in the face.  it’s probably fedex policy to be apologetic to people, but at a certain point, it gets to be really ridiculous: “okay, I have your address.  sorry for the inconvenience.  we can hold it at the market street facility tomorrow, let me get your e-mail address so we can inform you when it’s there.  it’ll be there after 5pm or so, sorry for the inconvenience…”.  you’re sorry for the inconvenience, I got it.  conversations may be monitored for quality assurance, about ten billion times over, yes.  from robots to real people with heavy accents, proper quality assurance all the way with some bacon, eggs and a 10 hour window, please.

there is nothing more frustrating than missing a package.  it’s not like you’re angry at a particular person, and you can yell at them.  you’re at the mercy of the shipping company, and their gracious 10 hour window.  and hopefully, you don’t step out for a minute, eat, sleep, or listen to anything other than the numbing silence of your house as you pace through it, contemplating the very essence of cycling.  because that’s what it all comes down to, right?  no other package deliveries come close to the significance of new components.  some how, it’s okay to miss your roommate’s package from his parents, I mean, it doesn’t directly affect you anyway.  plus, it’s not like he’s your friend.  the guy thinks he’s cool, but he’s not a cyclist, nor does he appreciate pro cycling.  therefore, he is no one.  he is just roommate that brings in income, and that is all.

cycling eclipses relationship problems.  “you said you were going to do this, and then take so-and-so out to dinner, drop them off, and then do a backflip, then buy me a ring, kneel down, and ask me to marry you!”  really?  the solution to fixing problems between individuals is simple.  don’t put yourself in any problematic situations.  if a problem arises between you and someone else, and you’re sticking to the fundamental rules of cycling (riding, eating, sleeping, riding), the problem is not yours, it’s on the other side of the fence, with “them”.  if they can’t understand the rules, then they are no one.  and it’s not like they have to be a cyclist to even grasp the concept of being consumed by something.  there are plenty of endurance sports that embody such a holistic mindset, it’s almost hard not to understand it, or at least appreciate people that are consumed by it.  oh gosh, that makes me so cold, no wonder why I’m not part of the cool kid’s table.  please.  there is nothing more frustrating to me than a delay in anything related to cycling.  I’d rather die on my bike while racing, than be on a death bed with nothing to show for except for a bunch of people standing over me, helplessly incapable of doing anything about the current situation.  and at that point, I’d probably be reminiscing about all those useless people that I let get between me and riding.

people fail because they have emotion.  do not have emotion.  your bike has no emotion.  it only knows how to go, stop, and look pro.