Okay, now THAT was weird

[fenchurch]

I woke up early this morning (around 6:00) and figured I'd been sleeping enough lately because of this stupid infection that I might as well get up and get some stuff done... well, one of those things ended up being ordering Mean Streets (a collection of four urban fantasy stories including one by Jim Butcher) from Amazon. The order was placed at exactly 6:41 with standard Second Day Air delivery.

At 12:57pm local time, I got a notice that my item had shipped. Nice! Ooo.. even better, it's listing a delivery date of tomorrow! I figure that a) I ordered early enough in the day that they were able to get it out in today's shipments and b) it's shipping from a local warehouse, so it's only going to take a day to get here. Yay!

At just after 2:00pm local time, the doorbell rang... followed by a knock. By the time I got to the door, I could see a guy's back as he got to his car (just a regular looking, older sedan type car) before he hopped in and drove away. And there, on my porch, was a package from Amazon. My first thought was that it must have been mis-delivered and this guy was just dropping it off at our house... and then I was trying to remember what I could have ordered last week that would be arriving today.

Even curiouser, the shipping label wasn't exactly the same as the ones Amazon usually uses... and drawn in pen was a rough map of our neighborhood with a star where our house would be. Okay, a bit different, but still not overly odd... if the package had been mis-delivered by some new delivery service and whoever had gotten it just wanted to make sure they could find our house to drop it off.

And then I opened it... and out fell Mean Streets. So that's right around seven hours from order to delivery. By some guy in a sedan.

Weird.

Comments

[julietvalcouer.livejournal.com]

O.o

I'm not sure if I would be impressed with REALLY fast shipping, or just creeped out.

[julietvalcouer.livejournal.com]

RTA: Maybe it was a used-book sale from a local merchant?

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's pretty much where I am on this, on the border between impressed and creeped out.

And nope. It's a new book ordered directly from Amazon. The only other thing I can think is that the delivery company has their facility somewhere nearby and someone decided to just drop it off. Or something.

[anirt.livejournal.com]

someone decided to just drop it off. Or something.

That was my theory. Maybe someone lived in your area and decided to just drop it off. I wonder if that's really company policy, though.

[shakatany.livejournal.com]

Wow I wonder if that's a record?

Shakatany

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Well, I just corrected my math... it was actually seven hours from order to delivery. But still! I'm really curious about the chain of events that got it here that quickly and in that manner.

[usedtobeljs]

[blinks]

That's something, that is.

[rosiewook.livejournal.com]

That's wild! The benefits of living near the warehouse.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

That's service!

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

That is both creepy and really, really fast service.

Some Guy in a Van Delivery Service

[sillymagpie.livejournal.com]

Efficient, if strange...

[nmissi.livejournal.com]

Beyond bizarre, and very cool.

[eliz.livejournal.com]

Wow and I was impressed when Netflix set up a warehouse here in Greensboro...

That's equal awesome and creepy- like they knew you were going to order it!!!

[agilebrit.livejournal.com]

Well, you know...it is an Urban Fantasy collection. Maybe they haz mysterious "connections"...

[jawajames.livejournal.com]

that's what i was thinking... the book might not have been actually in the box until you opened it... ;)

[saifai.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing it was ordered through a 3rd-party vendor (and most of the time I don't even notice when I order through one of those on Amazon either) and he figured he'd save cost by hand delivering it. *shrug* At least, that's the story I'd stick to in order to not get overly creeped out.

[knitress.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if they've hired a local courier service for the close-to-the-warehouse deliveries? The sedan thing sounds so much like the kind of delivery courier that brings delayed luggage and such.

[napalm_isis]

very odd indeed.

[lage-nom-ai.livejournal.com]

Whoa. I agree with everyone else: it's both impressive... and creepy. :D

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

Good grief that's quick!!

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

That's just ... odd.

[ayinhara.livejournal.com]

Totally weird. You have to track if anything similar happens to future orders.

[jerusha]

Very weird, and yet awesome. Maybe the warehouse was in your neighborhood?

[ukamikanasi.livejournal.com]

My husband says they used to do that at UPS with overnight packages sometimes. It was probably on the guy's way home, and this way Amazon gets to absorb the shipping cost (or break even if it was free shipping).

[spikereader.livejournal.com]

That's service for you!