klsiegel320 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
klsiegel320) wrote2003-10-16 09:47 pm
klsiegel320) wrote2003-10-16 09:47 pm
Vapor-Lock
About a week ago I was trying to mail my husband's (very small) Swiss Army knife back to him. Let's leave aside for the moment why I had occasion to be trying to mail my husband's Swiss Army knife back to him. I just was.
So I bought a padded mailer, wrapped it in a further layer of bubble wrap, sealed it, addressed it, took it to the Post Awf...'scuse me, the Post Office (gotta watch that; I have friends who work there), stood in line waiting for the windows to open (at 9:00), stood behind the only other person in line who had some kind of weirdness that needed to be explained to him several times over by the one and only available clerk, finally approached said clerk...and here's where I made my critical mistake. I was friendly.
I chatted up the clerk, as she was weighing the package and preparing to put postage on it. I shared with her the story of what I was mailing (and I guess now's as good a time as any): my husband flew from Newark, NJ to Atlanta, GA to visit me, on the Friday night a week after the hurricane.
He realized after he was on the train platform on his way to the airport that he'd forgotten to remove his Swiss Army knife from his keychain and leave it in the car, and if he took time to do it once he'd discovered it, he was going to miss his train and possibly his flight. So he resigned himself to losing the pocket knife.
Except that he didn't lose the pocket knife. He pulled his keys - with the pocket knife still attached - out of his pocket and put them in the bin. They went through the X-ray machine, he went through the X-ray machine...they cleared him, he took his stuff, and off he went. With a pocket knife. Onto an airplane.
So, let's leave aside that he's probably committed some federal offense tantamount to treason by bringing a sharp object within fifty miles of an airport, let alone actually getting onto an airplane with it. Let's leave aside the warm, safe, fuzzy feeling it gives me to know that Newark TSA officers passed him through security and didn't confiscate the pocket knife. Here he was, in Atlanta, with a pocket knife - which he didn't want to risk losing on the return trip. Hence, the request that I mail it back to him.
"Oh, we can't mail that. You can't send that through the mail. That's mailing hazardous materials."
What?!!! So how am I going to get this thing back to him: carrier pigeon?
Utter vapor lock. I called him in a fury (at the PO, not him), telling him I hoped he didn't mind never seeing the knife again because now that it was here in Atlanta, I had absolutely no means of getting it home again...and he reminded me that I was checking a bag that night, coming home for the weekend, and that it was certainly not forbidden to carry the knife back in my checked bag.
Problem solved - very simply. But I was so busy being infuriated and frustrated that I couldn't even think of the simplest, most obvious solution...
So I bought a padded mailer, wrapped it in a further layer of bubble wrap, sealed it, addressed it, took it to the Post Awf...'scuse me, the Post Office (gotta watch that; I have friends who work there), stood in line waiting for the windows to open (at 9:00), stood behind the only other person in line who had some kind of weirdness that needed to be explained to him several times over by the one and only available clerk, finally approached said clerk...and here's where I made my critical mistake. I was friendly.
I chatted up the clerk, as she was weighing the package and preparing to put postage on it. I shared with her the story of what I was mailing (and I guess now's as good a time as any): my husband flew from Newark, NJ to Atlanta, GA to visit me, on the Friday night a week after the hurricane.
He realized after he was on the train platform on his way to the airport that he'd forgotten to remove his Swiss Army knife from his keychain and leave it in the car, and if he took time to do it once he'd discovered it, he was going to miss his train and possibly his flight. So he resigned himself to losing the pocket knife.
Except that he didn't lose the pocket knife. He pulled his keys - with the pocket knife still attached - out of his pocket and put them in the bin. They went through the X-ray machine, he went through the X-ray machine...they cleared him, he took his stuff, and off he went. With a pocket knife. Onto an airplane.
So, let's leave aside that he's probably committed some federal offense tantamount to treason by bringing a sharp object within fifty miles of an airport, let alone actually getting onto an airplane with it. Let's leave aside the warm, safe, fuzzy feeling it gives me to know that Newark TSA officers passed him through security and didn't confiscate the pocket knife. Here he was, in Atlanta, with a pocket knife - which he didn't want to risk losing on the return trip. Hence, the request that I mail it back to him.
"Oh, we can't mail that. You can't send that through the mail. That's mailing hazardous materials."
What?!!! So how am I going to get this thing back to him: carrier pigeon?
Utter vapor lock. I called him in a fury (at the PO, not him), telling him I hoped he didn't mind never seeing the knife again because now that it was here in Atlanta, I had absolutely no means of getting it home again...and he reminded me that I was checking a bag that night, coming home for the weekend, and that it was certainly not forbidden to carry the knife back in my checked bag.
Problem solved - very simply. But I was so busy being infuriated and frustrated that I couldn't even think of the simplest, most obvious solution...