so, i don't know if my mail dude was trying to do me a favour or trying to piss me off and i'm consequently torn as to how to react. the package got here, but through a difficult route - and unsigned, when i was supposed to sign. that works out to my benefit, but it's more future packages i'm concerned about.

right now, i'm almost afraid to open it.

i'm going to probably walk down to the post office and ask them if they can automatically hold items to this address. there's no way anybody can contact me down here without prior consent, which is on purpose and not going to change. i'd rather they hold items there to begin with, and just send me an email to get me to pick it up. it removes a set of hands from the chain.

so, here's the story...

first, the crux of this is that i've made myself difficult to contact on purpose for many years - as long as i've lived on my own, basically. people coming to my old apartment would complain i was unlisted and they had to use their cell, but this was no accident. what a lot of them didn't realize was that i wasn't just unlisted; the buzzer actually wasn't set up. there was literally no way for anybody to contact me from the intercom.

and who uses the intercom? jehovah's witnesses. rogers. vacuum cleaner salespeople. mary kay. politicians. kids with fundraisers. people i don't want to talk to...

there's no intercom here. yet, when i moved down here, i took the doorbell out. it's for the same reasons: i do not want random people to be able to bother me.

you can agree with me by emulating me. it might get rid of some of the door-to-door type if more people adopted this method.

pretty much the one casualty of this is the mail dude, who drops off packages from time to time. yet, it's generally far too infrequently for it to justify being annoyed by children and religious idiots. i'm perfectly happy with going down to the post office and getting it myself. as mentioned, that prevents the unnecessary risk stemming from the mail dude handling it.

however, i happened to encounter him on my front step a few weeks ago and he wasn't very happy with my attitude. he asked if there was another bell to ring, because mine didn't work - i had to tell him i don't want it to work. so, he asked me for a phone number. right, like i want to give a random stranger my phone number (and i actually don't have one, anyways). i told him i'd rather he just leave the slip in the box. he was both confused and upset...

see, the mail people in canada are coming up against some possible extreme layoffs. looking at the government's plan, it almost seems like a scheme to make the mailboxes smaller and force more expensive courier options; what they're doing isn't going to eliminate carriers, it's just going to make the process more expensive. private carriers win, everybody else loses. no surprises, here - it's been the trajectory of government for decades.

however, i happen to be the type of ("real") anarchist that is opposed to frivolous work, and i'm not sure how anybody could argue that delivering mail is less frivolous than working a cash register. it's a job i don't think should exist; it squanders resources i think could be better applied elsewhere. if i can walk to the post office, why can't everybody else? so, i wouldn't be particularly upset about layoffs, and am not particularly empathetic to this guy's reaction to my request to leave it in the box.

the key question: did he pick up that i didn't care about his job?

i had a package arrive this morning that required a signature. strangely, it ended up down the street, left without a signature. i only know this because of the kindness of the neighbour who brought it to me, and was able to contact me by knocking on my landlord's door.

on first glance, it seems obvious that the mail dude is being an ass, here.

however, given that he knew i don't answer the door, he may have thought he was saving me a trip.

i actually don't appreciate that. but i'd rather talk it through than write him up. well, unless he's looking for severance, i guess. but i can't reasonably make any of these assumptions.

so, i think the best thing to do is determine if i can get the post office to hold items and email me for pickup when they come in.

the device is apparently undamaged. and, in truth, with the way it was packaged, it would have been hard to damage it.

oddly, the canada post tracking site continues to state that the item is "out for delivery". i'm going to let this run through the system and see what happens. if it works properly, i should get a refund. and maybe i deserve one. i'll give it a few days....