Back Door Service?

This morning I was getting ready to head to work and looked around for the cat. Since Eric accidentally left him locked in a room a while ago, I've been careful about making sure I know he's free to wander the house when I leave. He was at the back door, the sliding glass door, so I pulled the curtain away to say good-bye to him.

And that's when I noticed there was a box on my back porch.

Now, Eric and I don't go out back much in the winter. In fact, "not at all" pretty much sums up the times I've been out there since we put away the mower. But looking out the back, there's a package sitting back there, covered in a layer of frost.

I opened the sliding door with some difficulty, as there were curtains, a security rod that physically stops the door from moving and a cat in the way. I pulled the box in, set everything else back in place, and wiped some of the frost off the very damp box. It was addressed to me. However, I was in a hurry to get to work, so I set the box on the counter and headed out.

Coming home for lunch I found the box on the counter, now frost-less and slightly dried out. I opened it to find an awesome and utterly unexpected gift (Thank you, Vincent!). Then I typed in the tracking number to find out how long it had been sitting there. It was delivered Tuesday afternoon. It was sitting out there for two and a half days because the UPS guy decided on a whim to deliver it to the back door instead of the front, like every other package we've ever had delivered here.

Or have we?

Have other delivery guys put boxes in the back? We have a lot of kids in this area who aren't adverse to taking things from other people's property. Who knows if any boxes have been stolen from our back yard because we didn't know they were there? I'm not betting that there have been any, but I wouldn't know, would I?

That package would have made my day on Tuesday. I'm still very pleased with it, don't get me wrong, but I could have really used it Tuesday. Why on earth would they deliver it to my back yard? It makes no sense to me. There's a good spot on the front porch that most delivery guys put boxes, where the doormat can be lifted to almost hide a box. But the back yard? It's open to the elements (no porch). It's a moderately long walk in grass/weeds with no path to get to it. It just seems incredibly stupid to put it there.

I e-mailed UPS to try to get an answer. I wonder what they'll say. If they claim a security issue, it's a pretty lame excuse because I feel far more secure having boxes delivered to the front. And I notice those. Sheesh.