THE FEDEX-FILES

Although they won’t admit it and it may not be permanently lost, Federal Express lost my Father’s Day gift. They can’t tell me where it is — they don’t know where it is. They can tell me where it isn’t. But, hell, I can tell them that. It isn’t at my father’s house like it’s supposed to be.

I bought the gift two weeks early and sent it Two-Day FedEx just so I’d be sure he’d get it by Father’s Day. The first time in my life I’ve ever planned that far ahead for any gift outside of Christmas, and look what happens. There is a direct relationship between the amount of planning I put into something and the resulting magnitude of disaster. I’d packaged the gift ever- so-carefully, placing the box inside a cardboard container, surrounding it with foam-lined envelopes, taping all the edges, seams, and openings — twice. I should have bought it two days before Father’s Day and mailed the flimsy gift box through the U.S. Postal Service. Then I wouldn’t have expected it to get there on time, or really at all, and I wouldn’t be so distraught.

This experience has only somewhat shaken my faith in FedEx, though. The hundreds of times I’ve used them, they’ve never let me down once, not even during the Great Blizzard of ’96. And my confidence in FedEx can only be rivaled by my distrust for the other carriers, excepting UPS. (I don’t use them and I don’t know why . . . maybe those ominous brown trucks.) In fact, in the past I’ve been very tempted by my many bad experiences with Airborne Express to write of my faith in FedEx and my confusion over just how it is that a company which is supposed to be in the shipping business can make a habit of losing packages and pissing off people on the telephone with ludicrous explanations.

I’ve traded Airborne Express horror stories with any number of people, and I’ve got some good ones, if I do say so myself. The best? They lost the cover artwork for the premier issue of the Oxford American magazine, where I was working as art director. First, they had no record of having picked it up. Then, over the course of a day, we were told numerous different stories, most of which conflicted radically with the others. They eventually found it, but not before the ordeal shortened my lifespan considerably.

Cheap uniforms, delivery trucks that are, generally, dirty and in poor condition — even their drop-off boxes are inferior (Did these people start ValuJet?) I’d trust FedEx to China and back with my liver before I’d trust Airborne across the street with a roll of toilet paper.

So, then, where’s my dad’s peanut brittle, gourmet blackberry preserves, pure Virginia maple syrup and Colonial Williamsburg Sweet Potato Muffin Mix? I had to give a description of the package’s contents for tracking purposes — in case the shipping label had come off. I somehow feel violated that these gift items that my wife and I carefully picked out one peaceful Saturday afternoon at the Virginia Company in Old Town Alexandria are now listed on some computer bulletin board.

“Let’s see . . . a Father’s Day card, blackberry pre — ”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Every time I call to check on the package, someone starts to read the list off to me. In addition to having my personal gift-giving ability critiqued by everyone with access to FedEx’s computer, I have to contend with the notion that now that they actually know what is in the package, it’s in greater danger than ever. All I can see is some hefty uniformed FedEx employee sitting around his breakfast table enjoying my daddy’s maple syrup and blackberry preserves on a big stack of buttermilk pancakes. Hope you choke on it.

Monday. The day after Father’s Day. Four-thirty p.m.: “It seems that your package is acting as an invisible item in our tracking network at this moment. ”

Is it now . . . is it really? That’s mighty creative. My daddy’s preserves are acting as an invisible item in your tracking network. This brings up all sorts of possibilities. “Yes, I’m sorry. It seems that my MasterCard payment is acting as an invisible item in my checking account right now. If you’ll call back in a week, I’ll see if it’s reappeared.”

Truth be told, everyone I’ve dealt with has been very apologetic and helpful. Except at its final holding destination, Tupelo, Miss. “It was like pulling teeth to get anything out of them,” a tracking agent in Memphis told me. I started to call and say, “Look, I’ve lived in Tupelo, grew up not far from there. Birthplace of Elvis Presley . . . Jerry Reed’s Tupelo Mississippi Flash and all that.” And then it occurred to me. One of my packages, out of hundreds, gets lost going through Tupelo? Somebody’s got it in for me. Some poor kid I beat up in the bathroom in second grade is exacting his revenge. Whatever it is, whoever you are, I apologize. Just give my daddy his preserves.