[ExI] The Story of a Box

[David C. Harris]

Amara,

You are FUN to read!  I kept expecting a sign over an office door saying 
"Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate".    ;-)

  - David Harris, Palo Alto


Amara Graps wrote:
> ===================
> THE STORY OF A BOX
> ===================
>
> Or How Amara met EU-USA Trade Agreements, USA's Department of Homeland
> Security, and Italy's broken infrastructure, all in one morning.
>
> by Amara Graps
>
>
> On one fine, drizzly, Castelli Romani October morning, Amara began her
> journey to mail her seven-kg box to Boulder, Colorado, USA. After
> driving to the end of the A Metro line and parking her junkyard-jalopy,
> she clutched her box through 21 metro stops, finally emerging, forty
> minutes later, at the Ottaviano exit: the Vaticano.
>
> Destination: the Vatican Post Office, where she feels sure that her box
> can exit Italy safely.
>
> She leaves the metro stop, and finds herself surrounded by a German
> tourist group.
>
> "Kann ich helfen?" (Can I help?)
>
> "Nein, nein.. it's OK", Amara says, clinging tightly to her box.
>
> After five minutes, she reaches a guard gate and with guards, who seem
> peculiarly not Swiss, but Italian, instead.
>
> "Il vostro motivo per il vaticano ?" (Reason for the Vatican?), one guard
> asks, looking at her box.
>
> "Vorrei andare all'ufficio del poste vaticano per mandare la mia scatola."
> (I would like to go to the Vatican Post office to mail my box), she says,
> clutching her box tighter.
>
> He smiles and directs her to an office where she exchanges her Italian
> identity card for a "Vatican Visitor" badge, which she pins to her
> jacket.
>
> Strutting through the gate and feeling victory at hand, she enters the
> Vatican and locates the Post Office. She steps through the postal door.
>
> There were no other customers at that moment, and she sets the box on
> a table and walks briskly to the only open window. A gentle-looking,
> bespeckled man at the other side of the window looks back at her.
>
> "I'm sorry, we cannot mail that box here."
>
> "Why not?"
>
> "It is more than two kilograms. But Poste Italiane is just around the
> corner...." he offers, timidly.  "They can mail it."
>
> "But Poste Italiane is too risky!" She says.
>
> "Also for us!"  The Vatican Post Office Employee answers, apologetically.
> "I'm sorry..."
>
> Amara gathers her box, dejectedly, and returns to the guard gate.
>
> "Che cosa?" (What..?)
>
> "La mia scatola e' piu due kilogramma.." (My box is more than 2 kg.)
> She says, embarrassed.
>
> Returning her Vatican Visitors badge and stuffing her Identity Card
> in her pocket, Amara heads out of the Vatican.
>
> The Poste Italiane office looms in front of her.
>
> Thoughts of carrying this box through 21 Metro stops and the return
> drive to Frascati impels Amara through The Poste Italiane front door.
> She punches a button at the lime-green queue machine to get a ticket to
> wait in line, for the one window that manages postal mail. She timidly
> asks for a 'Raccomandata' (Registration) form for her box. The woman at
> the other end of the window looks at the box.
>
> "We cannot mail that box." (Non possiamo spedire quella scatola.)
>
> "Why not?" (Perche' non?), Amara asks.
>
> Her answer is something that Amara doesn't understand, until the postal
> woman points to another box behind her, large and flat and wrapped in
> brown paper, leaning against the far wall.
>
> "Possi comprare carte alla cartoleria .." (you must buy wrapping paper a
> the card shop...), she begins, now assisted by several customers who are
> trying to help her explain to Amara, all of them speaking Italian at the
> same time.
>
> "Oh! I must wrap the box with paper...", Amara mutters to herself, and
> gives the postal window woman her queue ticket and runs out the door.
>
> Back to the A Metro stop, through 21 stops, to her car and then Frascati.
>
> Parking her car in front of her flat, Amara collects her box from the
> back seat and walks up the hill to the center of the town of Frascati.
> To the "Gigi Travel" agency,  who are also a drop-off-point for the DHL
> courier service.
>
> She enters the travel agency, with her box that feels heavier by the
> hour.
>
> "Vorrei mandare questa scatola ai Stati Uniti...  Parli inglese..?" (I
> would like to send this box to the US; do you speak English?)
>
> (It seems that Amara is beginning to feel a headache.)
>
> "Yes, we speak English. What is in the box?", a dark-haired girl asks,
> and begins to measure the box's dimensions.
>
> "Boots, sweaters, cooking pot, kitchen utensils, socks, scarfs, tea...
> Personal items for living. I'm moving to Colorado and it's winter there,"
> Amara answers.
>
> She pulls out from her backpack, her itemized list, giving the contents.
>
> The young woman calls a phone number, where she is promptly put on hold.
>
> "This is not a standard DHL size box, so I have to get an estimate on
> the price based on its dimensions.  " she explains.
>
> After some minutes, listening, she says to Amara: "140 euros.., do you
> accept that?"
>
> "Are you serious? But I thought 25 kilograms was about 150 euros," Amara
> says, pulling out another piece of paper of old DHL information from her
> backpack.
>
> "Weight doesn't matter as much, because the items are not in our
> standard box."
>
> "The items won't fit inside of your standard box," Amara says. "OK, I
> have no other safe way. I accept."
>
> Ten minutes later, someone at the other end of her phone begins to ask
> the woman questions about the contents of the box. She takes Amara's
> itemized list and reads each item in Italian.
>
> "What are boots?", she asks Amara.
>
> "Shoes. Scarpe."
>
> "They want to know if they are made of leather," she says.
>
> "Well, yes.. boots are often made of leather..."
>
> "There are shipping rules for not sending animal products, and so they
> don't know if they can send these boots...", she explains with one ear
> glued to the telephone.
>
> "Also products made of wood.. Is anything here made of wood?" She asks
> Amara.
>
> "There is a wooden spoon for cooking..."
>
> "Oh.. I must ask..."  She returns to the telephone.. while idylly
> munching on a granola bar.
>
> Another ten minutes later, she hangs up the phone and seems reassured
> that no forbidden (at least 'enough' forbidden) animal products or
> products of wood are going to be sent to Boulder, Colorado.
>
> "OK.. there are US-EU or US-Italy regulations for shipping, but I
> explained that the items in the box are used, private items. But you
> must also officially declare the box as "Personal Effects" for US and EU
> Customs. Here is what you must write in your letter."
>
> She proceeds to give Amara the main points that Amara must write in her
> Declaration Letter to the EU and US Customs.
>
> "And for the Homeland Security, they need a photocopy of your passport
> and they need to know the details on your plane trip for your move to
> the US"
>
> "I don't have my plane ticket yet..", Amara says.
>
> "Well if you tell me the approximate day..."
>
> She jumps to the computer. This being a Travel Agency, she locates a
> hypothetical flight, quickly.
>
> "Here, you can use this flight information..." she offers.
>
> "OK. I have a second box..." Amara begins.
>
> The dark-haired woman looks distressed.
>
> "It seems like a better use of time, if you give me two copies of all
> of the forms, I fill in the forms myself, write the Declaration Letters,
> with passport copies, for both boxes, and return tomorrow morning,"
> Amara says.
>
> "Va bene!" (OK!)
>
> And that is the story of Amara's box(es).
>
> My box and its sister box (discounted in price because they were
> together) left the Frascati DHL pickup point, in the next morning,
> safely bypassing the Poste Italiane, but beyond the help of the
> Poste Vaticano, with documentation addressing the concerns of US-EU
> trade agreements, and the US Department of Homeland Security.
>
> The End.
>
> P.S. In reality, there are ~200 boxes, but the rest will instead meet the
> EU-US Trade regulations and the US DHL in shipyards, hopefully out of my
> hands.
>
>