An Epitaph for Common Sense

Twice in a week.
I am gobsmacked, as they used to say.
I wouldn't have believed it possible if I hadn't been here to see the evidence of it happening for myself. On Thursday a courier was meant to deliver a mobile phone to the Vicarage. Since its intended recipient would be at work much of the day, he went out of his way to make sure that someone would actually be in all day. He was anxious to make quite sure there would be no delivery problems. And yes, one of us would be here - indeed was here - all day - so there should have been none of the problems that occur so readily when the courier's plan is to deliver between 8.00 am and 5.00 pm (which as you know means you will spend all day waiting in, wasting most of the time, and the delivery will turn up at 5.10 pm if you are lucky).

Well, no one turned up here at all, so our waiting was all in vain.

Subsequent troubled phone calls elicited the information that the courier's man vowed he had tried to deliver to the correct address and that no one had been in, so he had left their usual note with cheery information about how much extra subsequent deliveries would now cost etc.. Puzzle.

The next day a different courier tried to deliver a Fridge for Play Group. Instructed specifically to deliver it on a weekday morning only, (i.e before noon, Monday to Friday) and to the Church building itself, where Play Group would be in session, the driver managed to arrive and deliver it after noon, and to the Vicarage. Apparently he hadn't realised the time, or noticed the whopping great church building standing next door. Even though we have a nice big sign outside it to tell everyone, in case they miss it, that it is the Parish Church...

Sunday dawned, and so did a new discovery. I had been away in the week, and did not go to the church building on Saturday morning by the usual entrance. But arriving today a colleague found a note about delivering a mobile phone..... By its creases, the note seemed to have been stuck in between the doors (there being no letter box) and at some time later to have fallen out and landed near the adjacent litter bin.

Thus we discovered what the phone man was doing. He was, of course, telling the truth. He had tried to deliver the phone- but not to the house next door with the sign saying 'Vicarage'. He had tried to deliver it to the Church !

Now how on earth can anyone be quite that daft? Or plain ignorant, come to that (I don't mean rude, but just literally unknowing)? There is a big sign in the Vicarage porch giving the house number as well as the name, deliberately to prevent confusion (in these days when Vicarage are often nowhere near the church). And though it is a modern brick building, the Church is transparently not a domestic residence. Unless, that is, builders have taken to adding huge bell towers and large porches with notice boards and double doors, to add to their houses' sale-ability in these difficult times.

Two deliveries on two days. A matching set of astonishing muddles, by people who are supposed to be used to making deliveries and have no excuse for not knowing better. Have they really so little common sense? I simply do not know whether to pray that the Post Office strike action will be over very quickly; or beseech the Almighty to do something about our education system, for it appears no one else can!