Thursday, February 19, 2015

A Shipment to Singapore

What a friggin' day.  It started off smoothly enough: walk with Susan, breakfast, bringing more boxes of picture in to go through them.  I remembered I still had the big mirror (roughly 4 feet high and 3 feet across, framed in mahogany) that came with our bedroom set when we were married; decided to put it for sale on the Facebook Atlantic County Flea Market page.
I was just taking a picture of it when the doorbell rang.  It was the mailman, bringing the huge box Mike had mailed via Global Express from the Absecon post office on Saturday. Postage was $242.  Yet here it was.
The mailman explained that it had been sent back and there was a hand-written note on it, saying the paperwork needed to be more extensive.  For instance, Mike had written he was sending "board games" and the idiot somewhere wanted to know what kind of board games.  The mailman was nice enough to put the box in the foyer.  Why? Because it's so heavy, I can't lift it.
I can't decide if I was more stunned or furious.  I grabbed my coat, jumped in the car and drove off the the Little Egg P.O.  I'm there a lot, I know them well, and they were as incredulous as I was. Drove immediately to the Absecon P.O. and demanded to see the postmaster.  He took me in his office and I vented--loudly and with some vulgarity.
Upshot was he agreed to refund Mike's money.  He said they got only about one of these Global Express (most expensive) packages every six months, if that, which is why the clerk didn't alert Mike to make the descriptions more inclusive.  What almost floored me is that he said he himself would never send Global Express because this kind of thing happens all the time.  Well, I simmered down, as he was actually a pretty nice guy.  He was very apologetic and even asked what Mike did in Singapore.  When I told him he was a financial officer with Rio Tinto, he said he knew of them because he invests.
Left and drove down to Betty's, but she wasn't home.  Called her and learned she was at church getting ashes.  Met her and Alice E. there, we went over to Northfield Diner for lunch, where Muckie joined us.  Nice enough lunch, but what a damn day.

3 comments:

Ellen said...

I'm sorry you had such a frustrating day, Mom.

Hope tomorrow is (much) better.

Love,
E

Mimi said...

Thank you, honey. That means a lot to me. Lome, Mom

Mimi said...

LOVE, Mom!

Thursday

Up and at 'em after a pretty good sleep. Didn't do a whole lot in the morning besides making my lunch. Left about 10:30 to meet Dian...