Fitz Files: A bizarre bin-bag debacle

My week started with a delivery to the office…

Well, almost. The mobile rang and a voice said, “I’ve got a delivery.”

I refrained from congratulating him and putting the phone down and simply said… “OK.”

“I can’t find you,” was the next line.

“Well, where are you?” A stupid thing to say to someone who is obviously lost but I was not in the best of moods as I was only part way through my first cup of coffee and had accidently watched ten minutes of Good Morning Britain, so I had an excuse.

“What can you see around you?” I added.

There was a slight pause and then the voice described the road in which I live perfectly. I stood up and noticed a young man on a mobile on my pathway.

“Can you see the door with number 1 on it and a man in an upstairs window on a mobile?”

“Yes!”

I guided him down the three final steps and then the argument ensued over 15 kilos of black bin liners.

“I didn’t order these.”

“It’s got your name on the box.”

“Standing in a park with my arms outstretched does not make me a palm tree!”

I must admit that I did not understand that one myself but as I said the coffee had not quite kicked in. But he was right. My name, my address but on a parcel of which I did not order. He explained to me there was no process to return the delivery or to check who it was really for! 

“Have you thought of changing jobs and setting world trade tariffs? You have all the qualifications.”

He shrugged and left me holding 15 kilos of plastic bags.

Unbelievable… but do not get me wrong, delivery drivers have the worst job in our modern day ‘I need it now’ society. Only last week I squinted out of my office window to see a traffic jam, in a cul-de-sac of 22 houses, as three delivery vans jostled for position as they tried to offload parcels to the same neighbour’s front door. 

My own son was a white van driver until, thankfully, he found a job where he was treated with dignity and not as a ‘delivery yak’. He has many nightmare stories, including one from several years ago involving his friend ‘Hairy Rob’. (Seen a picture of him, completely bald, not even eyebrows) he was a good mate but not the brightest button in the sewing box. 

On one particular afternoon, Rob was on his last round and had banged in the delivery address to the sat nav. Rolling up at a smart semi-detached house, he found the item to be dropped off and to his surprise discovered it was a coffin. He double checked the details and struggled the rather bulky order out of the van doors and up the short path. He rang the doorbell and a very old lady tottered into view and opened the front door.  

“Coffin for you,” he said.

“Not quite yet,” she answered. “I think it is for my husband, I’ll just check.”

“For your husband?”

For one horrible moment ‘Hirsute Robert’ got the wrong end of the stick and imagined that she was not going to accept delivery until she knew it would be a good fit… for her husband! Much to his relief, an even older man arrived, very much on this side of the dark veil of eternity and introduced himself as ‘the husband’. He explained that this had happened before and that sat nav was ‘close but no biscuit’. The storage depot of the local undertaker was on the industrial estate directly behind their house.

“If you go back to the roundabout, take the last exit.”

An undertaker would have to be at the last exit. However, Rob gladly took the instructions and the coffin came to rest where it should. He left the job shortly after that and is now in the army.

As I said, I have the greatest admiration for delivery agents and do the job myself once a month. My wife runs a small magazine for our local area and when they arrive, I volunteer to trudge the pavements posting them through letter boxes. 

Like most posties, I have nearly lost my fingers to furious dogs, letterboxes with industrial springs and stoats! Yes, on one occasion I lifted the flap on a post box on the wall and staring at me was a family of stoats which had made it their home.

I actually love the walk, it gives me a bit of exercise and allows me to peer through windows, be nosey and kick the occasional gnome or two. I have never liked garden gnomes but wish to state for the final time I was not involved in the great gnome theft of 1989 in the Newton Abbot area. Some 20 went missing from gardens, were painted blue and lined up outside a local police station. I salute whoever did it but deny all involvement. However, I will admit to removing the fish rod from one in Exeter and super-gluing an Action Man machine gun into the hand. Jean-Claude van Gnome went unnoticed for months.  

Anyway, last month I found myself with magazines in hand wandering the pavements of my village when I approached a door with a large ‘STOP’ sign on it. There was one of those unblinking eyes of a smart doorbell and down one side of the door glass panel was a list: no free newspapers, no double glazing salesmen, no religious callers, no door-to-door salespeople, we do not need our drive tarmacked, gutters cleared, lawn mowed, or hedges/trees trimmed. 

Beside that was ‘smile you are on CCTV,’ a camera was dangling over my head. Another list edged the other side of the glass panel: “...all our property is marked with security smart water, we have a state of the art alarm system…” and finally, and this did make me smile, “we own Rex the Alsatian, he can make it to the fence from the door in six seconds, can you?”       

I was about to retreat when I looked down and noticed that I was standing on a mat which read … WELCOME. I think not! As I stepped back from the gates of ‘Fort Apache’ with more security measures than GCHQ, I glimpsed a metal object poking out from under a flowerpot… it was a door key! What is the point… anyway, I kicked a gnome at the end of the drive and went on my way. 

Must go, there is someone at the door. I hope it is my delivery of a solar powered mole repeller. I had no idea moles were solar powered. Just get in touch if you need 15 kgs of black plastic bin liners.