I have ordered a new leather jacket, the old one mysteriously having become several sizes too large, and it got me thinking about how useful those online parcel tracking services that any shipment company with self-respect has nowadays really are. I really don’t have any use for the knowledge of where between points A and B my leather jacket is, but still I check the link every few hours to see what’s going on. Maybe it has a positive psychological effect on some people, but I’m not one of them. And especially not in this case, when there’s a weekend involved, and the status has read “The parcel is on the way to the recipient’s Post-agent*” since Friday. It could as well have said “Yeah, we moved your parcel to the right stack, but we decided to let it sit at the loading bay for a few days to annoy you, you restless twat” for all I care.

*) The Swedish Post doesn’t deliver parcels to individuals anymore, it only transports them. Shortly after it became a government-owned company in the 90′s, they decided to save money by closing all post-offices and delegate the consumer services like stamp sales and parcel-handling to local businesses like convenience stores and gas stations. I’m pretty sure they would have replaced the mailmen with trained monkeys if it weren’t for the animal rights-people.