Out-in-the-sticks living can have it’s challenges, the most consistent being shopping.
Small town stores do not stock the items necessary for living in today’s fast-paced culture. Thankfully, our tower-o-power reaches mightily into the sky and snatches the Internet so we can shop online.
Which only becomes a problem when the package ships.
If the hidden prizes come through the US Postal Service, then we have to drive into town to pick them up from the postmaster. Our Mailman refuses to veer from the line of mailboxes.
On the other hand, UPS-man veers…at NASCAR speed. He usually throws the brown box over the gate and bails.
Fed-Ex-man is nice, he drives in through the gate, treats the dogs to bones and sets the packages on the front porch.
Sadly, most of our purchases fall into the hands of the stuntman UPS-man.
While I adore our dogs and the neighbor dogs, and I even chuckle when they trap unsuspecting workmen or delivery men in their cars by surrounding them, you can imagine the temptation they feel when a white-legged man in brown shorts throws a square box over a large gate and runs away.
Package=toy.
So begins The Great Package Race. The five human members of the Funny Farm must always be ready to retrieve a delivery as it flies over the metal gate, because once it hits the ground…anything goes.   
If the box is small, and we arrive too late, we spend the next fifteen minutes trying to convince the dogs that we weren’t just suddenly inspired to play a game of keep-away.
If the box is big? The alpha dog for the two properties is a male. And he…well,  he doesn’t like it when things left outside don’t smell like alpha male. So he does what any self-respecting leader-of-the-pack does…he pees on it.
Let’s just say that at that point, package rescue involves a plastic jumpsuit, gas mask and scalpel.
The package this week was big…and I didn’t make it in time. *Sob*

“Babe! Where’s the full-body hazmat suit? What do you mean you threw it away? I have a situation here!”