The Tivo Corporation has yet to deliver the new Tivo unit. I just got off the phone with their “Valerie” drone. She tells me that it should have been here by UPS on Friday. She tells me that they sent it out on Thursday with “next business day” service. I ask for a tracking number and she tells me that they don’t have one. I tell her that I’m not unhappy with her, but that I find it hard to believe their company would do business that way.

If they’re sending out hundreds, if not thousands, of these Tivo boxes a day, I can’t accept that their carrier wouldn’t give them tracking numbers. With that she tells me that they do get the tracking numbers from UPS, but that it takes five days for them to get those numbers.

“Well, we can tell you in a week where your overnight package is, sir. You can be rest assured, however, that it made it speedily somewhere.”

How can the Tivo corporation, until a few days ago my new favorite company, expect to stay in business? How is it that other companies allow you to track your purchases imediately? Do they know some kind of black magic? Does Federal Express employ a coven of old hags to grind up newt eyes and such in their central facility?

I know that I’m wasting too much of your time on this and I’m sorry. But I’m a Tivo junkie and I can’t help myself.

I feel like Lenny Bruce in his final days, as he would stand on stage and rant, unfunnily I might add, for hours about his income tax woes.