Dear UPS

Oh, dear, you have had such a miserable Christmas. Logjam, fiasco, snafu—all these insults were heaped on you and your normally reliable service. You joined the ranks of people making empty promises; "if you want delivery by Christmas, you can have delivery by Christmas." It didn't work out that way, did it? All those people who waited until the last possible moment to buy gifts for their nearest and dearest were apoplectic because their gifts did not arrive before Christmas. Yes, I know you hired 70,000 extra people to help out and chartered extra planes. The packages just did not make it from the warehouses to the planes in time. I believe it was not altogether your fault, and businesses made idle promises on-line with an eye to their profits and not to your logistics. (Couldn't resist bringing up your advertising pitch. I actually preferred the brown one better.)

I had a slightly different experience. I purchased a book from Amazon with no expectation of receiving it by Christmas. I thought it would arrive the day after and your helpful e-mails tracked it for me. So on Thursday I looked out on to my porch, and there on the bench outside the front door was a brown box. The box, however, looked a little flat and floppy and on closer inspection, it was empty. The flaps at both ends were hanging out and it should have been obvious to the delivery person that there was a problem. There were two possibilities—either the book had fallen out in the truck or someone had crept up on to my porch and stolen the contents of the box. If it was the latter case, there was going to be an awfully disappointed thief that night. That is unless he was very interested in the decipherment of Linear B and wanted the latest theory on the work of Michael Ventris.

Your customer service e-mail didn't seemed to be working, so I tried pushing the button which indicated you would phone me—and you did, two seconds later. I suspect you hired extra people to deal with all the complaints you expected, the chief qualification being someone who sounded maternal and helpful. When I told this lovely woman who sounded like Paula Deen that I had a problem, she replied, "We can't have that now honey, can we?" and within seconds another book was on its way. (Maybe it was Paula Deen. I think she lost her cooking gig.) And look what arrived today!

Thank you, UPS, my faith is restored.