The day after the crisis

I know the anticipation might have been ruining your Christmas and all that, but I want to set your minds at rest about the infamous FedEx parcel from the company that thieves, robs, rips you off and then tells you it's your own fault.

They're OK really, I mean, they might not be the mawkish Tom Hanks saccharine sweet good company that "Cast Away" portrays, but once they get their arses into gear, they can be okay really.

After a fairly hectic Twitter campaign during which I insinuated corruption and incompetence, I was invited to partake of a DM (which is a lot less fun than a BDSM and better than an M&M) during which they informed me they would move heaven and earth to get my parcel back. Indeed, the very next morning at 10 a.m., a grizzled and gnarly truck driver hobbled up to the front door, bent under the weight of my 26 kilos of sundry stuff (no resell value, all second hand for the customs people). 

I was tempted to ask him whether he had been caught or had it seriously dropped off the back of a lorry... but I didn't. He apologized profusely, explained that he had had to drop off a batch of 7 parcels of a similar size to a retail warehouse, and had only discovered the mistake when he got to the end of his round. 

Now, if there is one thing I am a sucker for, it is someone owning their mistakes... so instead of breaking a branch off the tree and whipping his sorry gnarly arse all the way back to the FedEx van, I smiled and thanked him and came out with the sickeningly nauseatingly Mary-Poppinsy line of "that's OK mate, mistakes happen - thanks for putting it right!"

The frigging halo was shining as I wandered back to the front door.

So, happy with the outcome, I tore into the box to get my books and DVDs and Christmas presents for Ottawacker Jr.... and felt unbelievably elated about the whole affair. 

Which may have explained my subsequent actions. When I went to pick Ottawacker Jr. up after school, he informed me in a grandiloquent tone that he had invited Y to come and play after school. 

Instead of telling him that OMICRON/PANIC/MAYHEM/OTHER PLANS, I just said,, "Yes, that's fine, call and confirm," and then went out and ordered the second-best burgers in the world from The Burger's Priest for everybody (including a meat-free one for vegetarian Mrs. Ottawacker).

We're still low in the case counts, so hopefully we'll survive the incursion. And the burgers were amazing,

If you are interested, the best burgers in the world were made next door to the Baci Bar in Nancy, France. There are a lot of stories to be told about the Baci Bar. The post-bar dining experience only rarely comes into the mix.