I am very, very glad to live in an apartment building with people who can sign for packages, hold them in the office until I get home, and then hand them over. People in my area are constantly complaining that UPS will leave packages which are then stolen; they've even seen people following the UPS truck down the street, using a cart, to collect any packages they can snag.

So ... what do people think of Amazon's idea of using drones to deliver packages?

When I work from home, I've seen the postman deliver all the letters and magazines and then make a second round to deliver larger packages. It could be that's what yours did, Steph.

Or it could be that he'd neglected to drop it off, they called him and - oops! - he decided to hand it over.

So ... what do people think of Amazon's idea of using drones to deliver packages?

I have to echo what (I think) Zenkitty said on FB: rednecks will delight in shooting them down for sport.

Oh, I hate that UPS/Fedex to USPS thing like burning. Because the us postal system does not deliver to my house. But Fedex does, so I check to see how the parcel (remember when we called it parcel post?) will be delivered and then I give them either my street address or my post office box. Whereupon they typically tell me they cannot deliver to my post office box. So I give them my street address, which now includes my actual town name, which is not the town of zip code, and a remonstrance (NO USPS!) Which should do the trick. But it never does. So it gets shipped to the town in the zip code. Which is not my town. And furthermore, it's not the town where my P.O. box is, which is a third, further, town. So then it sits there, with them getting increasingly angry at me until I get increasingly fed up with my parcel never appearing and finally run around to the three post offices to find it.

In fact, Newegg just lost a Cyber Monday sale from me because of this rigamarole. They don't ship to P.O. Boxes, but they use the USPS system to verify their addresses. Which mine fails. Because USPS.

I mean, I kinda like being off the grid, but since both the census and the Jehovah's witnesses have now found me, I feel I should be able to convince a vendor to ship me a package that will actually get to me.

Zen, I really should get a box. I need to figure out where to put it however, since my building is old brick, with not much else to lash one to.

Still, the effort will be worth the reduction in agita.

rednecks will delight in shooting them down for sport

wasn't there a town that was issuing drone-hunting licenses? and/or offering a bounty on each drone shot down?

Oh, I have a postman tale of woe too!

So, one of my friends sent me a birthday package in a box and another sent a large card in a padded envelope. The box was from California and the card was from the western suburbs of Chicago (i.e, about a 30 minute drive from where I live).

The box and card were both mailed on (approx) November 13th. The box has not appeared although the tracking info says that it was delivered on the 14th. . . the card didn't appear until the 29th.

I'm still trying to figure out what happened to the box.

I have to echo what (I think) Zenkitty said on FB: rednecks will delight in shooting them down for sport.

Yep, that was me. Like skeet!

Selling books all over I've learnt that which delivery is worse depends on place. Locally, USPS is the most reliable. But If I'm mailing to Oakland, I avoid USPS. If I'm mailing to a residential district in Brooklyn UPS will lie like anything, whereas USPS will mostly deliver. (Trudy Booth, as someone who lives in Brooklyn may have a different perspective.) If I'm shipping to Woods Hole Mass Fedex is my best shot of stuff getting there intact, but also damn pricey. (For shipping just one or two books at a time, Fedex is NOT economical. Not their target market, to be fair.)