Ever had a frustrating experience? No? Well, those of us who live in the real world envy you just all to pieces. Particularly those among us who have attempted to purchase items via Amazon Canada and have them shipped via Canada Post. Consider the following:

On the evening of November 29, 2002, a Friday, following long deliberation, I decide to splurge by purchasing the DVD box set of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. Since I haven't been able to find it locally for a reasonable price (i.e., less than a hundred and fifty bucks), I decide to go online. I even get to use an electronic coupon for ten bucks off. "Cool," I sez. As I place the order (about $110 all told), the website informs me that, since my order exceeds a certain dollar amount, I also qualify for free shipping via Canada Post Xpresspost. Well, it's not overnight, but what do you want for free? "Cool," I sez again, and place the order. A moment later, I receive via e-mail a notification that my order may be expected to arrive in, oh, say, about two weeks.

Then, keeping in mind that there's no mail on weekends, the following happens:

Monday, December 2, 2002: No package.
Tuesday, December 3, 2002: No package.
Wednesday, December 4, 2002: No package.
Thursday, December 5, 2002: No package.
Friday, December 6, 2002: No package.

Par for the course, naturally, since it hasn't been two weeks yet. Somewhere in here the status of my order changes from "Awaiting shipment" to "shipped". Then:

Saturday, December 7, 2002: While browsing my local Costco, I find about a dozen copies of the selfsame DVD box set on the shelf. For about eighty bucks each. You can just imagine my consternation. But, being the stoical fellow I am, I brace up and hunker down to wait for the delivery which is coming Real Soon Now, albeit for a few dollars more and a few days later. Then:

Monday, December 9, 2002: No package.
Tuesday, December 10, 2002: No package.
Wednesday, December 11, 2002: No package.
Thursday, December 12, 2002: No package.
Friday, December 13, 2002: No package.

Monday, December 16, 2002: No package.
Tuesday, December 17, 2002: No package.
Wednesday, December 18, 2002: No package.
Thursday, December 19, 2002: No package.
Friday, December 20, 2002: No package.

The more astute among you will have noticed that more than two weeks have passed and no Cosmos. Also, somewhere in here, the status of my order changes a weensy bit. From predicting an arrival somewhere within two weeks of shipping, it now predicts shipping by January 15th or so. Ahem.

I will spare you the remaining depressing litany of dates. The thing is, I live in an apartment building, and I know from experience that if Canada Post cannot deliver a package (those little mail slots are awfully little), they will leave a card advising that you can pick up your package at the local postal outlet. So just picture me each day, at the end of a long and frustrating shift in the salt mines, coming home hoping to find the nice little purchase (which, by the way, was billed to my credit card with no appreciable delay), or at least the little card telling me where I can go get it.

Nope.

So along comes January 14th, and I am getting just a weensy bit impatient. No package. The tiniest inkling of a suspicion of the understanding that maybe, just possibly, there is a problem is beginning to soak past the inner layers of my cranium and cause a light itch on the outer layers of my brain. I undertake to contact Amazon Canada to find out more. Contact with a human being would be nice, but is that possible? Noooo. They have a very nice page on which they have anticipated every possible problem and you get to click the one that applies to you, whereupon you are redirected to another very nice page where it explains why it doesn’t matter and Everything is Just Fine.

If that's not good enough, you get to send an e-mail through their form. Now, it just happens that I work for a large company - which shall, for the moment, remain nameless - where my job is to answer customer support e-mail. This affords me, shall we say, a certain perspective on the efficacy of requesting customer service via e-mail. Frankly, I have better uses for my time.

Then I check my own personal e-mail, where I discover – and mind you, this is seven weeks after I have heard anything at all from anyone about anything – the following notice, a.k.a. the punch line:

“UNDELIVERABLE. A shipment from the above referenced order has been returned to our fulfillment center due to no response in three delivery attempts.”

Three delivery attempts? Are they mad? What? Where? When? Why? How? Who? Huh?

Maybe I’m giving up too easily. I just don’t know. But who exactly do you complain to about this? Is there some magical 1-800 number at Canada Post that you can call and request that the person responsible beat him/herself lightly about the head? Why did I not receive my package? Why did I not receive one of those cards? Why did I not receive a notice from Amazon that, to all appearances, my package made three round trips from a fulfillment center to my very doorstep and back with nary a peep directed to my actual attention?

Can someone explain this? I’m asking you!

And so, all in a froth and a tither, I hustle back to Costco. Having kept track over the past few weeks, I am well aware that they were down to no more than one copy of the box set lying around shortly after New Year’s. But heck, I’m an optimist. So maybe I waited seven weeks for nothing – at least there’s still a chance I can get it cheaper, right? So I check the shelves. In fact, I pore over them very closely indeed. I even buttonhole one of their inventory people and get a straight answer: none in stock, none on order. Missed opportunity. So I then head to the mall, to Cinema One, and I pick up their single copy.

For one hundred and fifty Canadian dollars.

After seven weeks, and virtually endless frustration, I finally have what I wanted. And it only cost me twice what it might have. But that’s the kind of life I’m having, isn’t it?

“Boo hoo,” I hear you saying. “What a whiner.” Maybe so. But if you’re so special, why did you bother to read all this self-pitying nonsense?