As expected, KJ and I acquired a few new props and additional articles of clothing in Barcelona so we decided to ship a box back home to ourselves. What seemed like a simple task turned out to be a hysterical ordeal that kept us laughing for two months and culminated in the arrival of our box just last week.
Let's go back to where it all started, the Correos (Spanish Postal Service) office near Plaza Catalunya in Barcelona, December 18th. We showed up around mid-day with our big a$$ box packed and ready to go. We waited on line... and waited... and watched a Correos employee take a lunch break... and then waited some more. When we finally got to the front of the line after an hour and twenty minutes, we found out that our box was WAY too heavy, despite the fact that we had been there a few days earlier to ask about the requirements. So, in the middle of the post office, with a line out the door and a lot of irritated Spanish onlookers, KJ bolted out the door and down the street to buy a different box (since the post office didn't have any that met their own requirements...lovely!). When she got back, we began unpacking our stuff in the middle of the post office floor. For any other two people with any other box, this might not have been such a hysterical sight. However, for anyone that knows even a few of the details of what happened during our stay in Barcelona, you can begin to conjure up an image of what that post office floor looked like. We had rainbow dusters, a headdress, a road sign from Ibiza, a bathrobe, bathing suits and an assortment of other oddities scattered for all to see. We were frantically re-packing and laughing and hoping, praying that we could fit enough stuff in this box to avoid extra baggage on our flights home.
We finally got the new (and smaller) box packed and tossed it up on the scale. 19.97kg - just under the limit! We taped it up, tossed it over the counter to our friend from Correos while the angry mob starred. The Correos worker put the box on his scale and we watched as it landed on 20.77kg. He gave us a perturbed look and told us it was still over. We insisted that the scale on our side had just given a different weight, but he didn't seem interested. He said it had to be under on HIS scale. We moaned and groaned and watched as his assistant wheeled the box back around the counter. We hoisted the box back on our scale and watched closely... 19.96kg...thank you very much! We showed him the box from across the counter, pointing proudly at the weight. He motioned to us to bring the box BACK across, all the while the Spaniards are shooting dirty looks our way and our crap is still strewn all over the floor. We held hands and our breath... it was all on the line. The box went up on his scale and blinked back and forth between weights for what seemed like a minute and finally... 19.98kg, just under! KJ and I started jumping up and down, high-fiving and hooting and hollering like only we can. Most of the people in Correos were not amused, although by that point I think I caught a few smirks.
The story would have been funny enough had it ended there...but of course there has to be more. We paid 150 euros to ship the box (by boat no less!) and had to wait two months for it to arrive. I tried to track it the entire time, but it never came up in the Correos system (surprise surprise). Then, one day last week I got a note in my mailbox that said I had a package. I went to the front desk to get the box... and it's completely unrecognizable! It's filthy dirty and has a slit down one whole side and a gaping hole in another. I could not believe my eyes! I wondered if the box had been sent on a ship or was dragged behind one! The good news is that the box was packed so tightly that stuff was not easy to pull out and everything appeared to still be inside. And thank god, because had my headdress been missing, there would have been hell to pay!
No comments:
Post a Comment