I ordered a book from Amazon in the US. If I lived in the US, I would have received it within three days. But of course I don’t, so I shipped it to Miami whence it was brought by air for USD 12 (under two pounds weight). Plus a few bucks for home delivery.
But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Way ahead.
The Miami shipper delivered it to a local delivery service called DAC. From DAC’s warehouse in Montevideo to my doorstep is roughly 46.5 kilometers, a one hour and five minute drive, according to Google (pronounced google-eh) Maps. So allowing a few minutes for confused DAC employees to fumble around, I could drive there for my package and be back in under two and a half hours.
Assuming an average speed of 6 km/hour, I could walk the same in around 15 hours and 20 minutes.
But let’s go further: if DAC had strapped my book to the back of a giant tortoise and sent it on its way, theoretically (of course the poor thing would have to take breaks) I could have my book in just over 7 days.
(To make it more realistic, we’ll assume the tortoise has more than just one book to deliver.)
Am I being ridiculous? Consider how long DAC took to deliver a package 46.5 km, and you tell me.
That’s over 11 days. The tortoise could have been more than halfway back by the time DAC accomplished its delivery.
Completely pathetic? Maybe not: they were quicker than a 3-toed sloth would have been, given the same task.