Zander's Inside Voice

I’m from upstate NY and so there are certain things I grew up with and don’t get very often. One such item is halfmoon cookies, sometimes called black and whites by those who don’t know what I’m talking about. They are soft, almost like cake. They are huge, with lots of chocolate and vanilla frosting. When I was a kid, I remember that my mom LOVED them. I can’t remember where she got hers, but they were amazing.

While in NY for my wife’s grandmother’s funeral, there were two boxes of 12 halfmoons. So much deliciousness in those two boxes… They were almost too big to finish in one sitting. As soon as I sunk my teeth into one, I felt like a little kid again, except it was so much better than I remember.

The next morning, I noticed on the box that this place shipped halfmoons. With my birthday coming up, I decided that my present self would send my future self some halfmoons. I’ve been looking forward to them every since.

On their website, they claimed that they only ship Monday-Wednesday to ensure maximum freshness. I chose Wednesday, February 22nd, so I would have them as fresh as possible for my birthday.

I grew concerned by Wednesday evening because I hadn’t heard anything about them. I thought maybe they just shipped them with no email notice. I shrugged it off until the next morning. And it was then that my cookies were shipped. What?! The website said nothing would be shipped after Wednesday. I knew at that point that this was going to be bad.

But on Friday morning, they seemed to be moving westward quickly. Eventually they seemed to slow down at a USPS regional distribution center less than 30 minutes away. YES! USPS delivers on Saturday! I would actually get them on my birthday. All day I kept checking to see if they had left the distribution center and they had not. Finally last night I noticed that they had moved. EXCEPT THEY WENT 300 MILES EAST. WTF??? They went back to a USPS regional center 45 minutes from where they originated in upstate NY. Why, USPS, WHY?? They were within 30 minutes of their final destination and you left them there for over 24 hours just to send them back to where they came from.

I still don’t have them. They started moving westward again. I am heartbroken. Past me was so excited to do this for future me, and now present me is upset and frustrated and wishing I hadn’t bothered trying. I’d like to think that this bakery will make things right and send me out another order. When this batch of well traveled halfmoons finally shows up, I know they will be stale.

I just need to know why they spent over 24 hours so close to me and then traveled back east. I have no idea why that happened or how it can even be explained. Someone didn’t feel like emptying the truck so they just drove back with packages in it? Too bad for them that I had the tracking information.

I just checked again. They’re still sitting in a regional center in NY, where they’ve been for the last almost 12 hours. I will never understand how the USPS has survived so much incompetency. This is terrible service.