hapless!

Main Entry: un·lucky
Function: adjective
1 : marked by adversity or failure (an unlucky year)
2 : likely to bring misfortune : INAUSPICIOUS
3 : having or meeting with bad luck (unlucky people)
4 : producing dissatisfaction : REGRETTABLE

Dan ordered an upgrade of some music software he uses and the silly company decided they had to mail it to him (rather than allowing a secure download like most people do these days). It was shipped Purolator (well at least it wasn’t UPS) and they tried delivering it on Wednesday when we were not home. I phoned them Wednesday and requested it to be delivered Friday morning when Dan would be home. Another delivery attempt was made Thursday but we didn’t think much of it (sometimes it takes a day for the request to go through the system so packages are often re-attempted delivery) but nothing came on Friday. So after waiting and missing his class, Dan decided to walk to the depot and pick it up. It was fairly close to where we live and at least from the map it seemed rather simple to get to.

Oh, right, we obviously forgot we are living in Montreal where nothing like this is ever simple. First of all, there is only one bus going to this area which runs every hour. Let’s not forget that this road is only accessible by a) the CN railyard b) Highway 20 or c) a “residential” road in Ville St Pierre, so the latter was the obvious and only choice for walking. By the way, there is no such arrondisement as Ville St Pierre – its actually part of Lachine which appears to be some sub-borough of Montreal-Ouest, but the delivery address listed the as Ville St. Pierre, leading to no end of confusion. Then the Montreal map I always carry with me was actually completely wrong for that area (good thing Dan had printed a [correct] google map and brought it with him) so when he called me on his cellphone we had a good 10 minutes of confusion there, too. Dan found the right road and had to walk through a tunnel (intended for vehicles) that goes under one of the train tracks. However there were some problems with this, namely that a) the tunnel does not have a sidewalk or any kind of pedestrian walkway b) is only wide enough for one vehicle at a time and c) isn’t straight, but has a hairpin turn in the middle. Well as you can imagine, these are not ideal conditions for someone on foot. Dan attempted it anyway and realised just how dangerous it was as he was running through the tunnel. After getting through, the narrow road he was on actually seemed to be dug into the ground so on either side there was a cliff and again, no sidewalk. Being an industrial area, though, there was of course lots of traffic.

The good news is that he did get the package, but now had to traverse the tunnel once more. Thankfully some kind motorist stopped and gave him a ride not only through the tunnel but up the hill back toward NDG as well. So in the end, no harm was done except we have now realised that we will put my work address as the ship-to destination for all future packages!

I don’t know what it is about us – partly, I think, we are stubborn and refuse to do the simpler but more expensive option (in this case, taking a taxi or asking a local courrier to pick up the package) but also we seem to have a knack for attracting situations like this. For example, being stuck in airport and almost missing a non-refundable connecting flight over the Atlantic, grossly underestimating the difficulty and time involved to get to the West Island and nearly missing someone’s thesis defense, or having strange and embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions. As my boss said when I told him about the airport incident, “That could only happen to you!”