From the Editor’s Desk: The Best Laid Plans (Premium)

Before returning to Pennsylvania after almost four months abroad, I made to-do and to-buy lists along with schedules for each. And then I made sure to schedule the purchases and some other items for delivery, like review laptops, so that they would arrive after we got home.

Everything arrived before we flew home. All of it.

And that can be a nightmare. Some of the items required a signature. Some were valuable enough that I didn’t want them sitting out on our front porch, unattended. Some were, well, both.

One of our neighbors has a key and was collecting mail and the occasional package for us during our time away. She seemed happy to do this, and we didn’t have many packages delivered during that time, at least. But this neighbor is also gone every weekend. She handled the couple of packages that arrived on Friday. But by the time Saturday rolled around–we were up at 5:00 am in Mexico City, with our flight leaving at 8:30 am–she was long gone.

And then the notifications started coming in.

“Today’s the day!” a notification on my phone read as it appeared just after 8:00 am. “Items in [your] order should be delivered today.”

Today? I looked up the order, which was from Apple. I had waited to make it until Friday because each day I’d looked at it before, it would have arrived too soon. But by the time I had finally ordered it, I was told it wouldn’t arrive until May 5, which was the following Monday. And perfect timing.

I checked with my wife. Were we sure that our neighbor was away. Yep.

“Your shipment is out for delivery today,” another notification read, popping up just minutes later. This one was from FedEx, and the shipment was from something called CEVA. “Estimated between 10:45 am and 12:45 pm.”

CEVA? I Googled it and found it’s a logistics company associated with FedEx, so that wouldn’t tell me which company had shipped the package. But the address was in Carol Stream, Illinois. And that was familiar. It was Google. I had ordered a Samsung Galaxy S25+ from Google Fi. And that was supposed to arrive … when? I looked. Tuesday, this time.

Hm.

I tried not to worry about this too much. We live in a little 55+ community of condos, or town houses, or whatever the heck they’re called. We’re the youngest people there, by far, and we’re surrounded be elderly people. It’s not exactly a high-theft area. But still. This was–calculating–$1600 worth of stuff that would be sitting out in front of the door, assuming they were delivered at all. The Google Fi package required a signature, so that might be held until Monday, in which case we would be home.

I texted my sister and brother-in-law, cognizant of a shared history with certain family members who are leeches and constantly take advantage. I’m not that kind of person, but I also very much do not want to even seem remotely like that person.

“Hey,” I began, tentatively. “Are you guys home today, or is somebody there?”

My sister and her husband had been away the weekend before, but they also have adult children. And … I don’t know.

“I’m not sure if they’ll deliver this if no one is there, but I apparently have a phone coming today,” I added. “It wasn’t supposed to arrive until next week,” I continued, trying to redeem myself somewhat.

And I waited. I imagined my brother-in-law complaining out loud about her “f@#$king brother” and how it was a Saturday, and we had been gone for four months, and

“I’m around today,” my sister replied. “What time?”

What time indeed. Also … thank God.

“Well it will supposedly be by early afternoon,” I replied, “but I will let you know if they leave it. If we’re lucky, they’ll just bring it back on Monday or something.”

Silence.

“Thx,” I added, Meekly.

“OK, let me know.”

“Thank you/sorry,” I responded. That felt a little better.

We boarded and got settled. The plane took off. I tried the Wi-Fi a few times once I figured we were close to being in U.S. air space, since it doesn’t work until then. When it finally connected, I checked my mail and text messages, and I brought up the delivery on the FedEx website. There was a map. The truck was in our neighborhood. It said that my “driver Ruben is on the way.” The estimated delivery time was 10:45 am to 12:45 pm., same as before. I looked at the clock. It was about 10:45 am. But that was Mexico City time. It was 12:45 pm where the package would be delivered.

“We’re in the air,” I texted, suddenly digesting the fact that my brother-in-law had never chimed in on this request. After I dealt with my imagined version of him complaining about me again, I continued. I told her, or them, about the map and time frame, adding that “these things are rarely accurate.”

“I’ll run over now and see if I can catch it,” my sister answered.

Yes, she’s an angel. Everyone around me is wonderful. But then I suddenly had a memory. That uncomfortable sense of déjà vu.

This had happened before.

“Sorry,” I texted, trying to stop her. “I didn’t mean to make this your problem. The UPS truck is right up the street, but based on history, it could get to our place at any time, including hours from now. I would hate for you to waste your time on this.”

I didn’t hear back. But you may be familiar with the “history” I referenced there. I wrote that story in iPhone Day (Premium) last September, describing how the new iPhone would be delivered that day, but that when the UPS truck arrived, it wasn’t in there. The driver looked everywhere for the box and came up empty. He drove away without giving me anything and then, hours later, a second UPS truck arrived at 6:00 pm. And well after the time we had intended to leave, to drive up to Rochester to see our son.

6:00 pm. Crap.

“I’m here,” my sister texted, meaning at our place. “I’ll stay for a few and see what happens. I didn’t see any trucks in the neighborhood on my drive.”

The good news is that they don’t live too far from us, just a few minutes by car. But still.

“Sorry,” I texted, again.

“It’s not the end of the world if he doesn’t leave it today if no one is there,” I continued, meaning the FedEx driver. “And if he does leave it, whenever that happens, I can text then assuming I’m still online.”

“I feel like this is exactly what happened to me last fall with another phone,” I explained. “We left late to see Mark because of that. Please don’t wait. :/ Sorry about this. I scheduled this so that it would arrive Tuesday, not today.” I was pretty desperate to avoid blame, is how this reads to me now.

“No worries.”

I kept refreshing the map page, watching the clock. Finally, the ETA changed to “by end of day,” so I texted again to tell my sister about that.

“There is the hilarious possibility that we’ll be home before this is even delivered,” I wrote. I didn’t really believe that. But that would have been outstanding.

This all felt like the setup for a joke. 30,000 feet above the United States, I could track a UPS truck as it drove around my neighborhood. What I couldn’t do was change this delivery, which should have occurred days later. All I could do was inconvenience my sister.

In any event, we were soon told to put away our laptops and large electronics as the plane would soon land. And then, we were suddenly in Newark, always delightful.

“Why are there 27 text messages on my phone?” my wife asked. She had taken it out of airplane mode and suddenly received all the messages my sister and I had exchanged since she’s the group chat. Mostly from me. I had already explained what had happened. And then I saw an email.

“Your package was delivered,” UPS told me. It was about 2:45 pm, and the phone had been sitting on our front porch since 2:20 pm, despite needing a signature. I had been wondering if that would happen. One of the weird unintended consequences of knowing our UPS and FedEx drivers so well because of all the packages we get is that they’ll sometimes do this kind of thing, no doubt to benefit us both.

It took us less than 15 minutes to get from the plane to the curb outside the airport: Thanks to Global Entry, this has become an incredibly streamlined experience. It took us longer to get an Uber, but we’d still be home by 5:00 pm, as it’s about an hour and 20 minutes with no traffic.

“The phone was finally delivered,” I texted.

“?” was the only response I got or deserved. I decided to let it go. I had bothered her enough.

Then she suddenly added, “I guess they figured it was a senor citizen neighborhood wouldn’t have porch pirates.”

LOL. Indeed.

We arrived home at exactly 5:00 pm. I could see a large Amazon box from the car, but not the box for the phone. We got out, thanked the driver, and I fumbled with my phone so I could tip and rate him properly for the long drive. And then I headed over to the porch. The phone was there: Its tiny box was behind the larger Amazon box. Just kill me, I muttered.

That Amazon delivery contained a grab bag of items–CPAP supplies, a pair of sunglasses, two Galaxy S25+ cases, and more–that were supposed to arrive next week, separately from each other. Inside the front door, there were several other boxes, all containing items that were to arrive after we got home. Some laptops. Another review item I’ll discuss soon. More CPAP supplies. Some books. Clothes. Wine. All kinds of things. All of it had arrived at the wrong time. Normally, I’d celebrate that. This time, I just felt dumb.

We unpacked, which didn’t take long. My wife went through the pile of paper mail, knowing there was nothing important in there but doing it anyway. I opened the packages. And then we decided to head to dinner. I charged the Galaxy S25+ so I could set it up when we got back. And I was delighted when the car just started up and worked normally despite sitting in the garage for four months. So I started backing out. We were back. Everything was back to normal.

“Do you have something else coming today?” My wife asked as I was backing out.

What? I was confused. There were like 8 packages in our place already. I thought that was everything.

“There’s a UPS truck over there,” she added.

Sure enough, there was a UPS truck out around the corner, but not in front of our place. Then there was a guy jogging toward us, waving. Yep. It was for me.

The first notification I had gotten that day had been from Apple. I had waited to order a new iPad until late Friday night, specifically so it would arrive after we got home. But it was arriving today. Was literally arriving at this second. I had forgotten all about it. $600 worth of hardware. And it was like it meant nothing to me.

I took the hand-off, thanked the guy, re-opened the garage door, took the box inside, got back in the car, and re-closed the garage door. What a day.

“What is that?” my wife asked of the package.

“I need a drink first,” I said. And then I put the car in reverse.