I’m building my own PC and I’m almost finished. “Almost” being the operative word; I’m still waiting on the memory. My 512MB RAM board was supposed to be here three days ago and it still hasn’t shown up. The plan was to write this week’s article on my new sleek, jet black, hand-built, screamin’ fast PC. This article was supposed to be my jewel in the crown, my eye of the Cyclops. But plans are just plans, and reality is often something different.

I don’t know where my RAM is and neither does the shipper. All they can tell me is that it’s in a cardboard box somewhere between their California warehouse and my front door. Not good enough. What makes it doubly disheartening is that, prior to this, everything was going so well. If you’ve followed along, you know that throughout this project, I’ve ordered all of my PC components online. This was for various reasons, not the least of which are price, convenience, price, variety, and price. The parts were arriving practically every day in boxes packed with specially designed protective foam. While there’s no space to describe it here, the packing for the hard drive was particularly ingenious. Seriously, I haven’t seen anything packaged that cleverly since the first Britney Spears CD.

And then this nasty RAM business. I know what you’re thinking: Circeo ordered from a second-rate company. Wrong. This vendor is one of the best. Ratings near the top; recommendations out the yin-yang. In fact, I ordered two other parts from them and they both hit my front door right on time. So what happened here? I don’t know, at least not yet. I’m not going to name the company just yet because I’m just a tad cranky and I don’t want to say anything that might get Mr. Risley sued. All I know is that I’m sitting here typing my weekly article on my old, faltering, faithful-but-ready-for-retirement 400 MHz Pentium, while a pile of brand new, boxed PC components are sitting by my side, ready-for-action, but useless without the memory.

“Not unusual,” says French, my friend and fellow PC hobbyist. “It’s like ordering from Amazon or Ticketmaster. Nobody has a perfect record when it comes to shipping and delivery. Hey, you can’t even drive through McDonalds and get what you ask for-and you’re talking to those people face-to-face!”

“It’s completely different,” I protested. “With McDonalds, it’s a tradition. I expect them to screw up my order. It’s one of life’s absolutes.” French is right, of course, but he misses the point. A RAM board and a filet-o-fish sandwich are poles apart. If any component had to be late, why this one? Couldn’t they have picked something less critical like the floppy drive? Nope, floppy drive shows up right on time. Who the heck cares about the floppy drive? With other options like writable CDs and online Web storage, who even uses a floppy anymore? It’s like “Crankshaft” in the Sunday Comics: no one’s quite sure why it’s even there.

Since I started this project, I’ve heard woeful tales of bungled orders. PC parts being delivered to the wrong address, a vendor shipping mismatched components, and parts ordered in September finally showing up in February. One guy even had the vendor go out of business a week after they cashed his check. Never got his shipment.

So in comparison, I guess my plight isn’t so bad. I’ll just sit by my front door and wait patiently for my RAM to show up. Which it will, tomorrow. Or the next day. Probably.