ONLINE SHOPPING, DELIVERY NEED TO BE A PACKAGE DEAL.

Byline: JILLIAN O'CONNOR

It may be the age of Internet shopping, but packages are being sent from the 1880s.

Our computerized ordering methods are straight out of ``Star Trek'' -- I point, I click, I buy. But then I need to be home for any given three days to get the merchandise, as deliveries come from the world of Henry James, complete with the driver's Victorian calling card left at the door should I be away from the window for any amount of time.

We order from the future but get the service of the distant past. In the eyes of the shipping world, we all stay home baking huckleberry pies.

Twenty-first-century shopping has become the equivalent of waiting around for the cable guy. But at least he only needs to come by every half-decade or so.

Parcel delivery can be a great thing, provided you're sitting at home between 2 and 5 or 10 and 2 or 9 and 12 every day. (And who isn't, you ask?)

If you have a job, though, or pursue any hobbies whatsoever, it's unlikely you'll be lounging about waiting for the exciting moment when a big loud truck stops outside.

If you had the time to wait around all day for a driver who may or may not show up, you'd probably go out to a real-life store.

Online sales remove the need to wait in line, but the wait for the products themselves has become endless for anyone who goes out to work each day, and hence has the money to buy lots of crap online.

And if you're getting gifts for an upcoming wedding or shower, you'd simply have to quit your job to get all those boxes.

In many delivery scenarios, busy people miss their packages altogether, day after day. Sometimes, a lonely ``self-employed'' type in my apartment building answers the driver's knock and signs off on a package, which may or may not still be on my landing when I arrive home. (We all know we're taking our chances with this one in L.A.)

Usually, though, I get home long after delivery hours to a notice to call the company, which will arrange to have the package redelivered the next day -- while I'm not at home.

If it's a windy day, the notice will not be posted on the front door of my domicile at all, but stuck to a rotted cactus on the sidewalk, or loosely affixed to a surly cat.

If I do indeed find the slip, I can check off the box asking the delivery person to drop off the items at my door, conveniently releasing the shippers from all liability when random passers-by decide to run off with my stuff.

But should I miss the driver's final delivery attempt, I'm in for a real treat: I then have the option to drive all the way downtown to get the box, provided I can get there during business hours. (Again, if I had that kind of time, would I not be at the mall?)

If I begged - nicely -- I could ask for redelivery. And that's when I'd get the 1-800 ultimatum: If I can't guarantee I'll be there on the fateful delivery day, at the hour of the driver's whim, it's the end.

That sucker is headed back to the store that sent it.

Why, you may ask? It's unknown. It's one of the great mysteries of the parcel world.

They have the big trucks. They have clerks in shorts. They even have my stated interest in someday maybe receiving my property. But if I screw this one up, untold horrors await. (Or so I guess.)

The only possible explanation is that they wish to torture wayward clients who head out to work on a regular basis.

The conundrum is why, when shopping remotely has become easier than ever, and sophisticated worldwide networks painstakingly track merchandise from a remote plant in China to a truck bed in Long Beach, we're relying on home delivery built for the 19th century.

Is it so difficult to, say, make an appointment for a precise drop-off time when you order?

Do we not all come equipped with cell phones and text messaging? Or at least little clocks on our PCs?

Until these companies think outside the box, the doorbell remains the highest form of home delivery technology.

Talk about the school of hard knocks.

Jillian O'Connor, [phone]

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