Carriers

Internet shopping is great. I want a new book, Kindle. Fifty seconds later I can start reading. Present for someone in the UK? Piece of cake. The problem comes when I want something that exists, something that has form and bulk, for myself.

Sometimes Amazon, or any of the other people I shop with, choose to send the thing to our PO box. Easier than easy. Often the Post Office even sends me a text message to say the package has arrived.

Sometimes, too often, the Internet seller uses a carrier - DHL, MRW, FedEx, UPS, SEUR, Tourline Express or any number of firms which claim to be the modern embodiment ot Herodutus "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds". They are all the same. Most of them can't find the house, I suspect that most of them don't even try.

Sometimes the carrier can't find the village. They take it back to San Juan or Alicante or wherever they have their local depot. They telephone me from their offices to suggest that I should move to a larger town with streets. I wonder why the driver didn't phone me when they were closer? I get to wait a couple of days more and still I have to meet them in the village.

I've got a new one though this time. They don't believe my address. I've talked about this before. No street, just numbers in our village. Obviously the people at DHL, MRW, FedEx, UPS, SEUR and Tourline Express don't believe this is possible. Some idiotic robotic voice calls to ask me to confirm my address. I confirm my address. Ten minutes later I get an email asking if I can confirm my address. The last package required about five minutes to order and pay. The "next day" delivery took nine days and required two robot voice questionings, one email, one phone call and one customer contact form.

When I was a boy I often holidayed in the Lake District. In Keswick there was a climbing shop. In the window they had a display of envelopes that were addressed to the shop in the most outlandish ways - the shop up from the pub, the shop with red boots in the window and the like. Someone, in the Post Office, a person who knew Keswick would read the envelope, use a bit of gumption and deliver the letters. I suspect that nobody actually reads  my address; some machine turns it into an unintelligible barcode and the fun begins.

It's a country

I'd been surprised when the door of office number two had opened as I leaned on it. I half stumbled and half leapt into the room on the other side. Two women gawped at me. I gawped back. I stammered out a greeting. 

"Hello, I want to send this to Qatar," I said, holding out a small padded envelope, weight about 20g and similar in size to an iPhone. 

"Qatar in Cantabria?" she asked. 

I pointed to the address printed on the envelope. 

"No, Qatar the country in the Middle East - next door to Saudi Arabia."

"Is that close to Lebanon?"

"Closeish," I said. 

"Is it part of Saudi Arabia?" she asked. 

"No, it's a country."

"Ah, I see; it's an island," she said, staring at the Google entry. 

"More a peninsula," I countered

She rang someone. "It'll be 97€," she said - "same as Lebanon." Back there again. I blanched but handed her my credit card. "We've got no machine," she said. I'm sure it was Gilbert O' Sullivan on the radio. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I asked if this were indeed a business. When I was outside again I couldn't help it. One very long, very crude outpouring at high volume. I went and got the money, I went back to the office, I paid and I left the little envelope with them to lose.

It was a strange office even by Spanish standards. When I'd first arrived I was sure the building was abandoned. Blinds down, litter strewn yard, no vehicles, no opening hours, no sign of life. I don't think they get many personal callers. Hence the gawping. 

Maggie has lost a contact lens. The sort of lens she needs is not available in Qatar. Fortunately she bought her last lenses in Cartagena so I was able to go to a local optician and order up a replacement.

Today was my first opportunity to ship the lens. I got up early to go to a carrier before work.  It was so early I hadn't been able to buy an envelope to put the lens in. I suspected, rightly, that the carriers would sell packaging. The lens was in liquid in a little bottle. The receptionist woman peered at it over her headset.

"You can't send liquids to Qatar," said the woman. 

"Fine, I'll put it in this case without liquid," I said. 

"You can't send contact lenses to Qatar," said the woman. 

I asked "Why not?"

"No idea." 

"Could I put it in something else; disguise it?"

"Not possible, they check everything."

"What can you send to Qatar?" I asked. 

"I can't tell you," said the woman.

"Can you send clothes?" I asked.

"Only with a receipt and a customs declaration," said the bearded man sitting next to her.

I felt we had maybe failed to build the human bridge so necessary for a fulfilling business relationship. Later I bought an envelope. I took the lens out of the liquid and put it into a dry case. That's why it was the second on my list, office number two.