I was expecting a small package in the mail, and it still hadn’t arrived.  So I checked my email this afternoon, found the tracking number, and went online to look up the status of my package.

According to the tracking number, the status was Delivered, In/At Mailbox on 1/24/15 at 12:54 PM in Morro Bay, CA.

I went outside and opened our mailbox.  It was empty.  I closed the mailbox and opened it again, peering all the way to the back, but of course it was still empty.

You know how, when you’re looking for something and you can’t find it, you start getting so desperate that you do things like look in places where you know the thing couldn’t possibly be, but you figure you’ll check there anyway?  Like under the bed and inside cookie jars and behind the front door and in the back of the closet.  I was starting to feel that desperation.  My neighbors’ mailboxes were lined up next to ours, and I opened each little metal hinged door to peek inside and see if my package might have been delivered to the wrong address.  Nothing.

In the past, I’ve received mail addressed to a woman who lives on the next street over.  She has the same house number as ours.  I thought maybe my package was accidentally delivered to her mailbox.  So I walked down to her house and knocked on the door.

She was very friendly and we chatted for a little bit, but no, she hadn’t seen my package.  I said goodbye and walked back up the street to my house, just as my next-door neighbors were turning into their driveway.

They were sympathetic to my plight of the missing package, but they hadn’t seen it either.  I thanked them and went back inside the house.  I was trying to manage my anxiety, but the panic was mounting.  Where had the package gone?  Who had it now?  Did somebody open it?  Why hadn’t it been returned to me?  Would the company be understanding and send me a replacement item, or was I just shit out of luck?

I went back to my Outlook and found the email with the tracking number again.  I clicked on the link and was redirected to the package’s tracking details online.  According to the website, my package was In Transit.  The estimated delivery date was Thursday the 5^th.

I couldn’t understand it.  I looked at the email again.  And then I realized what I’d done earlier:  I’d looked at the wrong email and followed a different tracking number for another item– one that had already been delivered on 1/24/15 at 12:54 PM in Morro Bay, CA.

Doh.