If I Haven't Said it Yet, Merry F**king Christmas

I am seriously disappointed with my two watch dogs. On Saturday Mark was expecting a delivery from Amazon. It was one of those new Echo devices. Which by the way, why the hell does anybody need one of those? We already have one in the kitchen that I can't get to work. I say, "Alexa, WXRT radio." and after a few seconds my radio station comes on. Then about thirty seconds later, it disappears. So I start to tell Alexa to turn it back on and before I can say anything, it comes back on. As I turn my back on the piece of crap, it turns my radio station off again. That leads to me screaming obscenities at the little white cylinder, who then flashes a blue light and begins playing music again, but not my music. 

So anyway, Mark had checked with the Amazon tracker and saw that his Echo was out for delivery along with two other things he had purchased. All day long he sat in the window waiting, until I told him I was going to the Jewel.

"Wait, I'll come with you." Mark called out.

I cringed because I really wanted to go alone. You know, run in, grab what I need, and run out. We were gone for about forty five minutes, which is a miracle by Mark's shopping standards. As I schlepped all the bags of groceries up into the kitchen I could hear Mark out front, in the living room.

"What is that? What the hell is that? Alan.... "

Mark was looking out the window at the front porch. I took a look. At first I did not see anything out of the ordinary. Then I spotted it.

"Umm.. I'll go get that."

I walked out on the front porch and picked up the package from Amazon. It had been opened. I quickly jammed my hand in there and felt around all the packing. Nothing, not a thing in that box. I looked up at the window and mouthed the word, 'Empty' while tipping the box towards Mark.

On the first Tuesday of every month, the City of Chicago tests it's warning sirens. We live very close to one and it can be quite loud. However, it is no match for the wailing that came from the other side of that front window. Mark went nuts.

"What kind of horrible place did you move me to? Waaaaaaaaa...  I never, ever had anything stolen off the front porch in Florida. Waaaaaaaaa... I hate this place, I hate you, I hate... Waaaaaaaaa...  I need a gun... Waaaaaaa" (He's not getting a gun.)

Interesting fact, Amazon does not have a way to contact them anywhere on their web site. No chat line, no phone number, no email, nothing. If you follow their instructions for a problem with receiving a package, you end up going in circles right back to the web page where you started. Also, nowhere on that empty box was a label indicating what delivery service had delivered the  package, and nowhere on the Amazon web site did it say who they had used to deliver it. You take a lot of chances when you order from Amazon. From the moment you hit that 'Complete the Order' button, you are on your own.

Now about those dogs. Those two, nosy, loud, territorial beasts that won't let anybody pass our house without scaring the shit out of them. They let somebody come up onto our porch, open the door to the vestibule, and steal Mark's stuff.