Going Postal

Argh. I lied. I spoke waaaaaaayy too soon, as I should have known.

Last week my neighbor, who is way more skilled in Japanese, came with me to the Post Office to verify whether I could ship my trunk home. This trunk is something I got at the Container Store in Pasadena in 2007, before I went on a film shoot to the Philippines. I brought it to Japan because it's a giant piece of luggage, and it carried a lot of my stuff when I moved. But it is cumbersome, and since my plans when I leave involve a domestic flight followed by a week in Tokyo (during which I'll be climbing Mount Fuji) before my international flight home to Orlando, I didn't want to have to deal with it then. The perfect solution seemed to be to ship it home. I mean, hey! It's like, a big box! Ship it!

So when the Japan Post man, who looked, as they often do, terrified to be dealing with foreigners, confirmed that I could in fact mail something that big to America, and that it would in fact be cheaper than I had feared, I was ecstatic. Tuesday night I packed it, and Wednesday that same neighbor helped me haul it in to the PO. When we walked in with the trunk and I saw the faces of the two people behind the counter, I sensed trouble. First thing we were told was that they only ship boxes.

Of course.

I was very frustrated, feeling like that had to have been part of our first conversation. But apparently not. Of course, if I could speak the freaking language, if I was actually capable of basic communication with people in shops and businesses, this could have been cleared up immediately. But we all stood around trying to think of options, while my trunk sat on the floor and got in everybody's way, and everyone sucked their teeth and said it was difficult, and eventually realized that it wasn't going to happen. My favorite possibility was unpacking the trunk and sending the contents in boxes, then shipping the empty trunk EMS (not the trunk with stuff in it, oh no) for ¥8000. That's $80. Wanna know how much I paid the Container Store for it two years ago? About $30 (I think - now it's $40). So thanks, but no thanks.

Grr.

Anyway. I'm going to unpack it and ship the stuff inside next week, and sit on the trunk for a while until I decide if it's worth the trouble to take it home. I mean, I know, for $40 I could get another one from the Container Store at Christmas when I go back to LA to pick up all my stuff from the storage unit. But this one has sentimental value! It has stickers from international voyages! Like caricatures of luggage have! I have that!

Sigh.

In other news, last night I began sewing the edging on to the Leaf Blanket. Wow, is it so much easier and quicker than I feared. And when I had one whole side, a corner, and part of the top done, I looked at it and squealed in accomplishment. The end is in sight! And the finished blanket will look good! I'll really have to block the hell out of it again, but maybe it'll be ready to send by next weekend when I ship the boxes. Sweet!

That's about all I have. It's Friday, thank God. Tonight is game night at Jon's - Settlers of Catan, woo-hoo! Tomorrow is poker night at Geoff's, after another couple rounds of the 777 Steps, and then Sunday is set for being Indian for a day. I'll get to wear a sari, apparently. I'll let you know how all that goes.

Also, I would like to apologize for the excessive use of exclamation marks in this post. Clearly, my writing skills have degenerated to an embarrassing degree.