Finally!
This all turned out to be quite an adventure (No fault of Dave's of course!). Monday morning Dave dropped the little guy off, it was processed through at 11:39AM Nov 9, he sent me the tracking information and everything seemed to be going just fine. Fast forward to the next day, I hadn't heard anything from the post office, so I called them, talked to a lady there who tried to inform me that "Shippers can't request hold at the post office!". After dealing with her I called the 800 number and was told to go to the office the package was due to be delivered to while she researched the case. Well I arrived at the post office at 4:00PM (an hour before closing) and was informed the package never arrived and that it had never left the state of origin!
Needless to say I was pretty ticked at USPS, so I started calling every person even loosely affiliated with mail carriage in an attempt to locate the package... no one seemed to have any real information for me and with Veterans Day taking place today it was looking like he'd be trapped in that box until Thursday. Finally I was able to get ahold of the express delivery department in Miami who were able to put me in contact with an answering machine (sigh) for the contract couriers that the post office hires for holiday deliveries. I had to wait out the night with no idea where the poor thing was located or when he'd arrive... it wasn't a great evening.
First thing this morning I got on the phone with the people at the courier and spoke to a rather nice lady named Shirley who had gotten the message first thing this morning and had picked the box out of the inbound items and gave it to a driver for delivery to my local post office for pickup. She had me head down to the post office while she contacted a supervisor who could further assist me. Upon arriving at the post office it was evident that NO ONE was there. The supervisor gave me a call directly and told me that there was to be a SOLE postal worker who would be coming in to the office and I would have to intercept them to be given my package.
After waiting an hour (it's now 9AM, and I'm an hour late for work), I call Al (the supervisor) back, and he contacts a manager for ANOTHER post office in the area who then calls me and takes over for Al. This guy sends me to yet another post office. After arriving at the second post office I get a phone call from the manager who tells me that he thinks the package is on a truck en route to yet ANOTHER post office and advises me to drive there.
I'm sure at this point in the story you can probably guess where this is going... the truck arrives at the third post office and surprise... it ISN'T on the truck! By process of elimination I take it upon myself to drive to the major West Palm Beach postal distribution office and park myself in the parking lot while waiting to hear back from the manager. Five minutes after arriving he calls me back and says that he has someone at that office looking for the package, I inform him that I'm in the parking lot and he advises me to sneak back to the loading docks and let myself in and ask for "Al".
I follow his advise and run into a truck driver, I tell him that I'm looking for Al, and he asks "Oh, you must be Jon... how did I know that..." as he presses a white sheet of paper to his forehead. He hands the paper to me and written on it is the name "John" with the words "Canary- Loose in facility" and a phone number- I politely inform him that while my name is Jon, the Canary is not mine but I am indeed seeking a lost pet. The man shows me in and introduces me to Al, who already knew the situation from our conversations earlier in the morning. He shows me to the bin where all the packages for my local post office are stored and we begin to go through it. As we're looking another guy walks by "You lost a LIZARD?!" and heads to a rack, looks in a box and pulls out a smaller box "Is this it?". Sure enough, the box was covered in post it notes saying "CALL CUSTOMER ON ARRIVAL" "CALL CUSTOMER IMMEDIATELY" and was addressed to me.
Al scanned it out and I popped open the box, and much to my relief there was a little baby tegu pushing at the lid trying to get out!
He's *already* chomping down on crickets like there's no tomorrow and drinking to his/her hearts content, and I can finally breathe a sigh of relief!
Now for pictures! Excuse the quality- iPhone cameras are terrible =P
Bonus ACTION shot of him snatching a drowning cricket out of his water dish:
This all turned out to be quite an adventure (No fault of Dave's of course!). Monday morning Dave dropped the little guy off, it was processed through at 11:39AM Nov 9, he sent me the tracking information and everything seemed to be going just fine. Fast forward to the next day, I hadn't heard anything from the post office, so I called them, talked to a lady there who tried to inform me that "Shippers can't request hold at the post office!". After dealing with her I called the 800 number and was told to go to the office the package was due to be delivered to while she researched the case. Well I arrived at the post office at 4:00PM (an hour before closing) and was informed the package never arrived and that it had never left the state of origin!
Needless to say I was pretty ticked at USPS, so I started calling every person even loosely affiliated with mail carriage in an attempt to locate the package... no one seemed to have any real information for me and with Veterans Day taking place today it was looking like he'd be trapped in that box until Thursday. Finally I was able to get ahold of the express delivery department in Miami who were able to put me in contact with an answering machine (sigh) for the contract couriers that the post office hires for holiday deliveries. I had to wait out the night with no idea where the poor thing was located or when he'd arrive... it wasn't a great evening.
First thing this morning I got on the phone with the people at the courier and spoke to a rather nice lady named Shirley who had gotten the message first thing this morning and had picked the box out of the inbound items and gave it to a driver for delivery to my local post office for pickup. She had me head down to the post office while she contacted a supervisor who could further assist me. Upon arriving at the post office it was evident that NO ONE was there. The supervisor gave me a call directly and told me that there was to be a SOLE postal worker who would be coming in to the office and I would have to intercept them to be given my package.
After waiting an hour (it's now 9AM, and I'm an hour late for work), I call Al (the supervisor) back, and he contacts a manager for ANOTHER post office in the area who then calls me and takes over for Al. This guy sends me to yet another post office. After arriving at the second post office I get a phone call from the manager who tells me that he thinks the package is on a truck en route to yet ANOTHER post office and advises me to drive there.
I'm sure at this point in the story you can probably guess where this is going... the truck arrives at the third post office and surprise... it ISN'T on the truck! By process of elimination I take it upon myself to drive to the major West Palm Beach postal distribution office and park myself in the parking lot while waiting to hear back from the manager. Five minutes after arriving he calls me back and says that he has someone at that office looking for the package, I inform him that I'm in the parking lot and he advises me to sneak back to the loading docks and let myself in and ask for "Al".
I follow his advise and run into a truck driver, I tell him that I'm looking for Al, and he asks "Oh, you must be Jon... how did I know that..." as he presses a white sheet of paper to his forehead. He hands the paper to me and written on it is the name "John" with the words "Canary- Loose in facility" and a phone number- I politely inform him that while my name is Jon, the Canary is not mine but I am indeed seeking a lost pet. The man shows me in and introduces me to Al, who already knew the situation from our conversations earlier in the morning. He shows me to the bin where all the packages for my local post office are stored and we begin to go through it. As we're looking another guy walks by "You lost a LIZARD?!" and heads to a rack, looks in a box and pulls out a smaller box "Is this it?". Sure enough, the box was covered in post it notes saying "CALL CUSTOMER ON ARRIVAL" "CALL CUSTOMER IMMEDIATELY" and was addressed to me.
Al scanned it out and I popped open the box, and much to my relief there was a little baby tegu pushing at the lid trying to get out!
He's *already* chomping down on crickets like there's no tomorrow and drinking to his/her hearts content, and I can finally breathe a sigh of relief!
Now for pictures! Excuse the quality- iPhone cameras are terrible =P
Bonus ACTION shot of him snatching a drowning cricket out of his water dish:
they definitely like to go in the complete opposite direction you want them to travel in.. glad he's safe!
