How hard can it be? One little trip to the post office. Yet it was a mission and a half.
I set off early in case there was a queue (you should see the queue for an ATM!). I decide to walk as a) it’s not far and b) I need the exercise. I walk about 1km carrying nearly 4kgs of postage and arrive at where the post office is supposed to be…. It’s not there.
No dramas, I had planned for this and changed tact and headed to the next one, about another 1km away. I arrive and immediately realise the language barrier is an even bigger problem than I thought. I start miming. ‘Box?’ no box. They don’t sell boxes at the post office. She points me in the direction of Office Depot up the road. Off I go.
In an entire shop of office products, the only box they had could fit me in it. Seriously.
Dejected I decide to DHL these parcels. This is getting hard! I had seen a DHL on the way home and decided to go there even though the (English speaking) salesman at Office Depot had told me there was one only a couple of blocks away.
Arriving I discover it is not actual a DHL place, but rather a box and packing place merely using the DHL logo to show what you can do with their product! ARGH!
It was time for coffee.
After recaffeinating myself my spirits improved and I decided to buy boxes and walk back to the post office. I fumbled through in Spanglish with the box man and headed back to the post office, juggling 3 parcels.
Back at the post office I get a different lady – still no English, back to miming. I proudly show her my boxes and she mimes back at me that they have to be wrapped in brown paper.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!
She writes down the name of a paper place & I lay my head on the bench. I have no idea where to go. Eventually she takes pity on me and runs around the post office finding scraps of brown paper to cover the boxes.
I label all the packages, then relabel them when I learn that the sender address has to originate in Mexico…great, if they return the packages I won’t even be here! While she messes around on the computer I put stamps on the parcels….stamps that cover 3 sides of the parcel. Ridiculous!
(Looks normal…but wait…)
(Ridiculous!)
Finally, 2.5hrs & $180 later I leave the post office and hope like hell that these parcels will make it home!
