Packing and the USPS

My stuff is everywhere. Every flat surface in the living room has something on it. It started as some evaluative thing but now it's officially out of hand. It's Thursday and I leave Austin and the USA Tuesday morning for 4 months on the Star Princess in the Baltic.

I've been working on a packing list, but it's been based on a list I found on the web for Texas reservists going to Iraq, so I've been modifying it to suit the relatively chilly Baltic summer.

Here, then, is my packing list:


- [ ] Clothes
- [ ] Underwear
- [ ] 7 underpants
- [ ] 7 tshirts
- [ ] Pants
- [ ] black dress pants
- [ ] 3 shorts
- [ ] 2 khaki pants
- [ ] trunks
- [ ] Shirts
- [ ] 2 tux shirts
- [ ] 2 black dress shirts
- [ ] 3 casual shirts
- [ ] 2 Princess knit shirts
- [ ] Jackets
- [ ] tux jacket
- [ ] tux vest
- [ ] cumberbund
- [ ] Black blazer
- [ ] Deniem Jacket
- [ ] Socks
- [ ] 3 dress socks
- [ ] 5 casual socks
- [ ] Etc,
- [ ] bow ties
- [ ] Long tie
- [ ] Shoes
- [ ] slippers
- [ ] NBalance
- [ ] dress shoes
- [ ] zori
- [ ] Costa Rica hat
- [ ] Toiletries
- [ ] mwash
- [ ] sunblock
- [ ] toothbrush
- [ ] toothpaste
- [ ] elec razor
- [ ] Zinc plaque medicine
- [ ] capent
- [ ] H&S x3
- [ ] Wipes
- [ ] Detergent
- [ ] 2 TJs bags
- [ ] TJs Liq Soap
- [ ] Sunglasses (2)
- [ ] Electronics
- [ ] Ipod
- [ ] charger cord
- [ ] dock
- [ ] Powerbook
- [ ] charger
- [ ] keyboard
- [ ] Hard drives and wall warts
- [ ] Ext Keyboard
- [ ] Printer
- [ ] speakers
- [ ] wall wart
- [ ] headphones - koss
- [ ] phones - Sennheiser
- [ ] Power strip new
- [ ] Small flashlight
- [ ] Alarm clock
- [ ] Musc Keyboard
- [ ] Paperwork
- [ ] TX DL
- [ ] Passport
- [ ] Cruise documents
- [ ] CC
- [ ] Wallet
- [ ] Roland passport bag
- [ ] Medical Certificate
- [ ] Business Cards
- [ ] Packing List
- [ ] Horns
- [ ] Alto
- [ ] Tenor
- [ ] Clar
- [ ] Flute
- [ ] Pic
- [ ] sax stand
- [ ] flute peg stand
- [ ] pic peg stand
- [ ] AAA Batteries
- [ ] Cordless Mic

Somehow I'm going to get all this into two rolling bags, one of which hasn't arrived yet. And that brings me to comment about the USPS. The Postal Service has improved a lot over the years, but I ran into an ancient wall of indifference when a package I ordered containing one of the bags I had bought to use on the ship vanished out of the tracking system.

"Well," said the USPS supervisor yesterday, " . . . according to my notes, we had it here on the 24th, then it got accidentally sent to southeast Austin, then back here, and then it dropped out of the system. My guess is it was adressed wrong."

Me: "That's not possible, because my charge card wouldn't clear if there was a mismatch with the zip code and the address."

Him: "Well, I don't know how they do things."

Me: "But this is the building it was last seen in, right?"

Him, hesitating: "Well, yes I guess it was. Why don't you contact the shipper and see if they got it sent by return mail?"

This is a package sent by Parcel Select, the new system whereby FedEx and other companies carry the packages until the "last mile," which is handled by the USPS. Not such a good system, it seems to me. It's getting to be nearly 2 weeks since my package arrived at the post office where my mail is sorted (It's actually 3.2 miles). And so it says on the tracking screen (which is, by the way, on a FedEx server).

As I grow older I divide up humanity into those who give a shit and those who don't. Judging by this supervisor's attitude, the supervisor of the crew that managed to lose a fairly large package that was accurately addressed to me. This guy didn't give a shit. FedEx they would have known where the package was. UPS too. All this guy cares about is his pension.

So I came home and ordered another Rolling Sherpa. This time it'll be sent overnight, on UPS. Meanwhile I'll keep piling its presumtive contents into various locations in our living room and wondering if it'll ever get cleared out.