No New Piano for Me, aka The Idiots Have Won

I was informed by UPS that my new piano, the mighty Casio Privia was lost. This was not entirely true. Follow this sad tale of woe, my dearlings, and see what I must endure for the sake of the muse Calliope.

Exhausted from waiting for delivery of my jewel, and confused by conflicting reports of the UPS online tracking info, I called the UPS service representative. After twenty minutes of listening to music, recorded assurances of the prompt and speedy service UPS delivers (pardon my skepticism) and random crackling, a nice young lady answered. She conducted a speedy investigation, and immediately informed me my package was lost. Furthermore, I should contact the shipper--Musician's Friend--and inform them so they can instigate an investigation.

Yow. So I do so. Musician's Friend promptly replied. The package wasn't lost--it had been returned to them, by the Bloomington UPS office, as undeliverable. In other words, it had been less than half a mile from my house, correctly addressed (I asked them to check) and these yahoos couldn't--or wouldn't--deliver it.

I say "wouldn't" because this isn't the first time this has happened to me. You see, Bloomington is a haven for people who couldn't survive anywhere else in civilized society. If you were to magically transport most of the people in positions of responsibility here to another part of the country, frustrated employers, baffled by the stoned indifference to job performance exhibited by these time-displaced flower children would give them the boot within two days.

I used to keep a blog on MySpace documenting what I called "Bloomingtonisms" in order to vent my frustration trying to run a business here. The synopsis: you cannot. Most of my "local" business is conducted in Louisville and Indianapolis. Terrified at the prospect of further trauma at the hands of these blank-eyes, vacuously-smiling Children of the Corn, I rarely leave my apartment except to go to the office supply store, post office and to buy food.

Something in the water, maybe? Or is it all those acres of corn? I don't know. I'll ask people where to send information about my show, and they can't tell me their physical address. That's right--many people here do not know where they work, or in may cases, live. I'll ask for directions and receive confused congeries of inter-dimensional tangles nobody could follow. My GPS doesn't help because often they'll give me the wrong Zip Code. The local AT& T representative was angry with because he told me the office was on 2nd Street and I couldn't find it. It turned out it was on 3rd Street. Oh yeah--they only remember to send me a bill for my advertising every three months or so, when they emerge from their coma long enough to actually do some work. Here's another one: Once I asked to get some cheese sliced at the local grocery store and was told by the lady behind the counter the idea was too "weird." I'm serious. Apparently, this person only makes cheese sandwiches from one-pound blocks of cheddar.

Anyway, back to UPS. This is the fourth incident in recent memory where they couldn't seem to deliver a properly addressed package. My last electric piano almost suffered a similar fate, but I checked up on it in time to intercede. I called UPS and they said they didn't have a proper address and were about to return it to the shipper. I told them to hold it and I'd pick it up. I drove through blinding snow to the warehouse and after twenty minutes of searching through unbelievable chaos, identified it. I pointed to the label where my name and address was clearly printed. Not quite simmering--I had driven through a blizzard and it was too cold to simmer--I asked to see the driver. It turned out he was still there, chatting up the counter girl. I pointed to the label. He said "Uh, yeah, I guess I didn't see it." Well, the counter girl was quite cute, but the label was nine square inches and the package weighed thirty pounds.

There were other incidents where I had to go in to identify packages that were misfiled, misplaced and in one case, almost delivered to someone else because for some reason not ever clearly explained to me, someone had switched my label for someone else's.

This is a town of 30,000 permanent residents. It's smaller than Mayberry. The other 30,000 are a transient student population. I've been in the same location since I moved here six years ago. The UPS people should know me by sight. I get several packages a month since I have to buy everything online, because you can't get anything in Bloomington that doesn't appeal to anyone past the age of twenty-one (did I mention half the population is student?). I think there's a complacency that's set in because students don't care, won't complain, and half of the remaining population are retirees and much of the remaining leftovers are mostly interested in biking and hiking. Or play Farmville on Facebook for hours on end.

So I've given up. This is my second attempt to mail-order a piano. The first time I interceded in time to snatch it from the jaws of infidels; this time I was too late. I just don't have the time or inclination to fight the system of mediocrity that seems to be indigent to this system. Unless a piano drops from a third story window onto my balding pate while I'm strolling down the street, I'm going to have to make do with my third-rate Yamaha for now.

The idiots, in other words, have won this round.