Once upon a time three parcels were carefully wrapped up and diligently labelled twice, just to be safe. One was to go to New Zealand, one to Canada and one to South Africa. They were duly collected by the carrier, Parcel Monkey, in the UK. For some reason, known only to the worshippers of the mysterious Murphy and his laws, the carrier relabelled all of the parcels, completely covering both original destination addresses. In the fullness of a VERY long time, the parcel for New Zealand arrived in that country but could not be delivered as the address could not be found, so it was sent back and discovered to be the parcel intended for South Africa.
South Africa is, of course, in the same hemisphere as New Zealand. It is not, however, in the same hemisphere as Canada. Guess where the parcel for Canada went. Mmm, got it in one. And the parcel for New Zealand? Still out there somewhere. Maybe it was addressed to Santa, or Bigfoot, or a giant redwood tree?
It is actually difficult to imagine how someone could mess up in such a monumental fashion. It is beyond belief that the person relabelling didn’t check the new label against both instances of the first labels and got it wrong three times. Strikes me a person may be better off strapping a parcel to the back of a pigeon and hoping for the best.
cnlesley 
I think that with all our progress ad technology life has become so over complicated and common sense has flown out the window for most things. I can believe it. Makes you wonder how we ever sent anything anywhere back in the day! I have given up sending parcels to the USA (LA in particular) because even with the street number and zip codes etc parcels fail to be delivered. No point chasing them because with their system the item could be anywhere (numerous collection points) and when you get there with the information required to collect an item you then have to struggle to speak a dozen languages to make someone understand what you are saying. Apparently I don’t speak English properly and I may even be Russian – according to a lady I had to deal with. I think she was Spanish but who knows! No parcels arrive and none are ever found. Someone somewhere, must have a collection of odds and sods I have sent over the years, or tried to collect ranging from a Dracula outfit for a grandson through to a collection of family photos. And everything in between! I wish I could teleport stuff, and me considering the hassle at airports these days. I do hope they turn up eventually but I am not holding my breath for you. 🙂
I have not lost any parcels going to the U.S yet, but I did have one I sent well before xmas to the UK arriving just after Easter. It was sent at the same time as another UK parcel, which did arrive in time for xmas. There is no rhyme or reason in it, but this was by regular post, not couriers, like the mislabelled parcels. If I do get one turn up, then the contents are not mine and it will have to go back. It really doesn’t look hopeful, though.