Adventures In Mailing

I went to a shack labeled Post Office earlier today to mail a package.  I have a few things I want to send home but I decided to just send one and see how it went.  There didn’t appear to be anyone in the shack at first but I figured they were somewhere.  I walked up to have a look around and there was a lady laying on a blanket on the floor behind the desk.  She jumped up and said hello.  I said I would like to mail a package and I took a wrapped gift that I had bought for my sister’s family and another piece that I wanted to send with it (I don’t want to spoil the surprise for her) and laid it on the desk.  The lady dug around in a pile of plastic bags and came up with a very well used gift box or maybe food container.  Hard to tell.  She placed the gift in the box and it took up less than half the space.  She started to put the lid on, she was going to send it just like that.  I noticed a smaller box underneath the desk and asked her if we could use that.  She said yes so I took the box this time, placed the gift inside and asked her for some newspaper.  She took a piece and began to fold it.  I took it out of her hand and crumpled it and packed the gifts in the box and put the lid on.  She then took a roll of shipping tape and tried to find the end but couldn’t so she gave it to me!  I found the end and handed it back to her and she wrapped the entire box in shipping tape!  Good luck opening that, Liz! Then she took the package and weighed it on a bathroom scale.  It was a very light package so of course it didn’t even register.  She asked me to tell her how much it weighed.  I said it looks like one kilogram.  She asked, “how many grams is that?”  I told her 1000.  She called someone on the phone and spent quite a while asking them what the prices were and finally got off the phone and handed me a shipping label book.  She said to fill out the top portion with my information and the bottom with the recipient’s.  I filled it out and then she examined it.  She pointed to the box with the return address and pointed to the box and said “for?”  I pointed to the return address and pointed to me.  This is kind of hard to describe in writing but it was hilarious.  We had a conversation that went something like this: (point to return address) “FOR”, (point to mailing address) FROM.  Me: “no (point to return address, point to self) ME, (point to mailing address, point to box) SEND.”  She pointed to the boxes on the page and said “FOR, FROM,” which was the opposite of what she told me to do.  So I said “I’ll rewrite it.” She said “no, it’s okay!” I took the book from her, drew a big X through the box I had just filled out and re-wrote it the opposite way.  We went through it again (point) “FOR,” (point) “FROM.”  At this point I started giggling and she did too. “Sorry, sorry, so confused!” she said.  I said “it’s ok” because really, what else could I say?  Then she gave me a sharpie and pointed to the box.  I wrote the address on the box, grateful that at least I had a better chance of it getting sent to the correct address.  I paid her and we smiled and said “thank you” and I went on my way.   So Liz, I hope you get your package.  She said it would take about three weeks.  I saw a different “post office” on the way back to my lodge.  I think I will try them next time.