Post Office Adventures

Today I decided I better mosey on over to the Post Office to check on the " no package " again , just to keep them on their toes you know . Moe and I drove to downtown Tagura"s Post Office . I told Moe he had to go with me since the guys there seem to think I am flirting with them. They act like they hope one of these days it could possibly turn into their lucky day some how . So ,Moe went with me for moral support .

We went in and I flashed my PO Box number card at them and said I had three packages I wanted to pick up . I wanted to sound like I KNEW they already had my packages there in the post office waiting for us to pick them up . I figured the easier I made it for them I might get some answers when I asked why they didn't have my packages . I mean it is like the Three Stooges there ! So , we went through the whole thing where I say , " yes I have a box . Yes , I know I don't have to pay NOW the rental on it ! No , I came to see if you have my packages ". Then Moe does his thing too .." daughter in America , packages , three of them , yes really ! Yata yata yata "! Ok ... wait here Larry says to us and he goes to my PO Box to see if they are there, duh as of they would fit inside the box to begin with !

Curly and Mo are doing their thing while Larry has gone to the back . Larry comes back out with a blue card in his hand . He tells us the package has arrived in Tripoli . I say well why aren't they here in Tagura since I have the card thats says they are here . Well , you have to go to the Post Office on Shara Zoweeyah street where the international packages go . We have to go to Shara Zoweeyah to get it ! OMG ! Where the heck is this Post Office located on Shara Zoweeyah street? I never saw no Post Office by the hospital on that street ! Are you sure ? Oh yes he says to us .

Total panic attack ! HOW are we ever gone to find it ? So , I tell Mohamed to ask the guy for precise instructions on how to get there.... EXACTLY ! What was I thinking ? He says sure ! They talk . And talk , Shara Zoweeyah is mentioned a lot . Bab Ben Ghashire is too , then for good measure ... the guy turns to me and tells me to look for a building that has BIG DOMES on top of the building like a mosque . OK ! So ... off we go ! I get in the car . Panic has set in , I am nervous . I am busy thinking ... traffic , lost , traffic , no parking , traffic , how to carry the packages once we get them, traffic . I ask Moe , the trusty guide .. "Are you SURE you know where we are supposed to go" ? He looks at me blankly and says .... "NO" !!! I explode ! He explodes ! More yelling ensues . People looking at us . We are still in downtown Tagura after all . I say forget about it ! We will go tomorrow . A Scarlet O'Hara thing for Southern women ! It is 11:45 by now . Ok, he says relived !

We take off for town to buy the groceries I need to make stuffed veggies tomorrow . As we go down the road a way I say to him ... we are going in ! Man the battle stations ! So , we do . I make it to Shara Zoweeyah street , following his instructions with us both still yelling at each other of course , it wouldn't be normal with out that right ?

We find a huge Post Office near the Shara Zoweeyah hospital !!!! But no domes on it in sight ! Since we are not too sure if this is the correct place , we want to ask some one if we ARE at the correct location , but where do you go , with 15,000 gates to the place . Armed guards all over . Looks like Fort Knox ! So , I drive up to the first guard , flash the blue card. Moe asks him where do we go for this "ya khoowee", my brother ? He doesn't know . He ends us to another gate to ask that khoowee ! This one LOL and says .... go straight ... and straight ... and straight .... then turn right ...... then go straight ... then go down .OK ! Got it !

So we do all that but the down part . WHERE DOWN ? No down to be seen . OMG ! So close ! I block a mail truck , make the guy get out and come to us and Moe asks him .."Belayhee ya khoowee , where is the down "? He lol , they all have a sense of humor there huh ? Says back up your car and you will see the down . I do . I see the down . He says go down , duh I know that much already but , I do it anyway ! And then drive to that open door , park by it and walk in, he instructs us . We do all that .

No one in sight inside the building . No noise at all .A ghost town . I yell "Salem Allah cum" real loud ! This guy pokes his head out of a office as if he can't believe his eyes or his ears ... PEOPLE ! OMG ! SO, he comes over and asks what he can do for us . Moe tells him we want to pick up three packages from America ! We show him our little blue card . He says wait here and takes our card off with him into the building somewhere out of sight . I am thinking he went to go get the packages for us since he took the card with him . Just as I am looking for a chair to sit down on he comes back and speaks to us in English .. "follow me please" . We do, as fast as we can , which is actually very slow . Moe is clacking his cane and I am hobbling very penguin like .

He leads us on a guided tour through the place as we go to where ever it is we are going . We enter a very large room with three men sitting or standing around doing nothing much . Men that are stunned to see us . I was being to feel like I was in a Stephen King novel when they talked to the guide, still looking at us as if we were something they never had seen before, a alien possibly . They took the blue card . Um hum a package alright . I said no , three of them . Moe said from America . They look at the card some more . Yep ! That's what it says alright .

I found a empty chair to sit down on . Moe is dressed like a golfer in his Izod shirt and golf shorts . I am in my jeans and tank top with a hot pink short sleeved t shirt over it. They would look at us ever now and then as if we might disappear before their very eyes .Then they would look at the card . Finally one guy went into a side room that had stacks of packages in it on shelves .There are neat stacks of packages all over the place , and eventually the man comes out with one large package . I say there are two more, just in case he gets too proud of his self and thinks that's all the packages ! So, he goes back in the other room he just came out of to look for the other two packages .

A different guy comes up to ask Moe a few questions about what the packages contains . About that time I see that the box that has already come out has "U Haul" on the box . "U Haul" is a company that you can rent its' trucks if you need to , in America . Mainly this company is used by people moving their belongings from one place to another . I started to think about my daughter and the things she might have used the box for when she moved . She had touched that box , had her things in that box . The next thing I know , I just start to boo hoo all over the place ! OMG ! How embarrassing ! All the men in the room froze ! And stared at me , which made me cry harder . And I ONLY had one Kleenex !

Moe is stricken also for much the same reasons , missing his daighter, but manages not to cry , instead he is trying to very quietly shush me , which causes more crying . By this time ALL the men are all looking for the other two packages ! Just as I was starting to get a handle on the crying jag , they found the other two boxes.They brought them out , the sight of them only made me cry much harder !!!!

There is definetly panic in the air by now from all the men ! The one guy asks Moe why was I crying ? He was really concerned . I am sure he was thinking, we will have to send some one to the hospital across the street to get a doctor and a tranquilizer gun if she doesn't stop crying soon .Moe told him the packages were from MY daughter that lives in America ! Oh well !!! They got that !

They opened the big one , did a poky , poky sorta sight thing . I was sobbing by now , so he asked did we have any thing bad in the boxes ? Moe assured him it was just clothes for me . The guy yelled at the other the guy to go get a cart to take this stuff to our car ... pronto ! They loaded those boxes so fast it would have made your head spin if you had seen it . They take off running to our car that was parked under /down. We follow as fast as we could back the same way we had entered the office building , with cane clanking and penguin hobbling . I start to slow down crying a little since it is hard to cry and hobble all at the same time . Moe is trying to be so sweet to me ,telling me it is ok .

When all of the sudden this guy comes flying out of a office from nowhere, yelling at us . Where did we think we were going ? Moe his tried best to explain to him , but got tongue tied from all the excitement and couldn't . So , I stopped my crying to try to explain to him that we were going to our car , and that we were leaving the building under supervision . No your not in that direction he yells at me . I say yes this direction is the way we entered the building and our car is just out side waiting for us . He says no it was impossible we came into the building that way and gets nasty . I am beginning to get angry now . I tell him our car is down and they have taken our packages to the car for us . IMPOSSIBLE he bellows to me .

Ok , that did it, I suck in air to my lungs to yell back at him. I tell him we are going to our car and that's that ! I take off walking / hobbling with Moe close behind me . I have had enough of this nonsense. He starts yelling that a AMERICAN is behind the " back lines" where no one is apparently supposed to be but authorized personell ! Thank God that the guy with our stuff came to find us at that exact moment ! He talks to that man , who is still mad because we are " back behind the lines " . I tell him IF a police man and a employee told us to go there then why was he so upset ? Moe grabs my arm and we take off to the car with ALL the people in the building following us out to our car as if we were suddenly public enemy #1 now ! We get to the car and the mad guy makes me move it , so I do , and the nice guy loads the packages into the car for us . We thank him profusely , and we leave like a bat outta hell ! SMOKING !


We get home and I unpack . I unpack , and I unpack , and I unpack , crying the whole time . Everything is so lovely and beautiful !!All fits just right . I love all these beautiful new clothes my daughter has chosen for me . Moe does too . I had to clean out my closet so I could find room enough to hang them all up . Which lead to me cleaning out Moe's side of the closet too since I needed MORE space . I have a real complete wardrobe now after twenty five years of not having one . EVERYTHING IN MY CLOSET IS FASHIONABLE , STYLISH , SOMETHING I LOVE AND FITS ME ! Now to a man , this may not seem like a very Important thing , but a woman will understand exactly what I feel . I think I died and went to Heaven !

I would like to say that it took less than a month to receive my packages from America . The original seals were still intact and all the items sent to me were present and accounted for . I am happy to say that except for that one man , every one treated us nicely and very politely . Thank Post Office !