Hot off the curb

That's how some folks like to get their newspapers. In keeping with our household policy of spending all discretionary income on reading matter, we subscribe to three daily newspapers. It used to take three different delivery outfits to get them to us, but these days the local daily, no doubt printing them locally, delivers them all at once. Nobody has ever filched all three. Nobody has ever absconded with the WSJ. From time to time, however, somebody gets there before we do and takes either the local or the NYT or both. A missed issue must be reported in one of three different ways, depending on the publication, even though all three are delivered by one carrier. It's not permitted to report a missed issue or request redelivery before 6:30 am, either. Since the papers are delivered these days by a pair of young women, and at 4:00 am, roughly, we knew, seeing two papers there, that the third was gone. It was really our own fault, because the trashcan wasn't out at the curb and we arose late by an hour or two, so somebody just naturally assumed no one was home and felt free to help himself. The on-line customer service site was out of commission. The CSR (or should we say "customer care agent") was very pleasant and reported that there'd be a redelivery between 10 am and 2 pm. The paper was not delivered. The Statesman struck again. The second CSR said that the missing issue would be included in this morning's delivery, and it was. The outsourced customer service center is one of the better ones, with very personable agents.