Of sauces

Today I received my package from Iceland, which I have been waiting for for over 3 weeks or something. Usually it only takes around 6-7 days for packages from Iceland to arrive, so after 10 days had gone by without a word, then I started thinking something must have come up. And come up it did.

My father was sending me some sauces I like from Iceland, amongst other items. Unfortunately, the containers under the sauces couldn't handle the shipping and they burst... Apparently during the flight over here, my package started leaking and ruining other packages around it.... Whoops!!
But, hey, not my fault.

Finally after having waited for about 2 weeks for this one package, the people from the office called me and said that a post office employee wanted to have a word with me, because of a shipment that had been sent to me. That's how I got to know about this problem my package caused. We set up a meeting with this post office representative about a week later, which should have been last Tuesday. They said they wanted to bring in an English speaking person in order for everything to go smoothly so I thought to myself that that person must be very busy, not being able to attend to this until in a week's time. I waited patiently and on Tuesday morning I woke up to a phone call informing me that the English speaking person couldn't come that day... We arranged for a new date, which was today at 15:00. Again, I waited patiently, but a liiiiittle tiiiiiiny bit annoyed because of the immense time this was taking. The only thing they had to do was to bring me the package, after all.

So, finally, the person arrived with my package. The original box was so messed up because of the leaking sauces that they had taken every single item out of the box, put them individually in clear plastic bags and then put them into a large box filled with styrofoam. That was my new package. Nicely done by the post office workers.

So, yeah. Received my package, finally. The interesting thing about this story is that the person who delivered the package in the end didn't speak a word of English. When he had made it clear to me in the absolute politest way possible that I could not hold them responsible for what happened and he had heard it from me that I would be willing to accept the package as it was.... then.... then he had to go back to the post office and fetch the papers for me to sign. Un-fucking-believable...

When he came back, an hour later, guess who he brought!? The English speaking guy!I had to sign 5-6 papers before I got to take the package away, as they were freeing themselves from any further implications with this single shipment. Before they left, they apologized for the inconvenience 5 times and bowed 5 times. That's only when I turned the corner, maybe they kept on doing it for a little while longer...

They gave me a present though... Sarcastic present, but they meant well. Given that the contents of the package were flooded with greasy sauce. They gave me.... laundry detergent.

Notice the paper measuring spoon... ingenious

Added 3 pictures to the May various album: http://picasaweb.google.com/gustafh/MayVarious