In February, I mailed an embarassingly overdue wedding gift to our friends Shannon and Richard in England.
It was a George Nelson Ball Clock and it was pretty cool, IMO, cool enough that I plan to buy one for our own joint.
Anyway, not knowing much about shipping packages overseas, I sent it parcel post, surface instead of air mail.
Weeks passed. Months even. Shannon and Richard came back to the States on one of their quarterly visits and we learned they hadn't received it. I did some poking around on the web and learned that Surface Parcel Post takes somewhere around 6 weeks, and that is if the package arrives at all. Apparently they ship the package around the US a few times, for fun, then they put it in a boat and they wait until an entire boatload of packages queues up, then they sail that boat around the globe a few times to age the packages.
A few days ago I went into our mail center, and there was a note in our mailbox that a package had arrived for us, postage due. When I got to the counter, they brought out this box that was covered with more stickers, stamps and markings than you can imagine. Lots of arrows and Xs and circles in marker, then some more notes layered on top, then marker-ings on those notes, pointing to other notes. Also, the box looked like it had been attacked by a bear.
Anyway, from all these marks and circles and arrows and Xs and notes we were able to determine the the package had been returned by the British Postal Service for "Unspecified reasons." Perhaps the package was not properly aged, or quarantined long enough. Maybe it seemed suspicious and was ticking so they set a bomb sniffing bear loose on it. Or, maybe I just had the address wrong. But you wouldn't think an incorrectly addressed package would merit a bear attack.
Anyway, it then travelled back to the US where it bounced around the country, visiting famous landmarks and eating pie, and arived back in Portland where it sat for a while while they tried to call our old number with no luck. Then they found our forwarding information and forwarded it to our Pony Express mail center here in Seattle. The guys at Pony Express called and left a message for me about the package, but they aren't really sure who they called, since they don't have a phone number for me.
I haven't opened the box yet to inspect the condition of the clock, after all that travelling and truck-running-over-ing and bear molestation. I kind of want to preserve the box in all its stamped up and mangled glory for the recipients on their next visit to Seattle.
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