O Canada!
Boy, did I get an eye-opener today. Have you tried to mail a package to Canada lately?
Among the dozen or so jobs I had while trying to work my way through seminary was Shipping Clerk for a small publishing company in Fort Worth, Texas. I remember how we used to mail books to Canada. You put the book in a box or a padded envelope, put the address on it - which looked the same as addresses in the U.S. except the postal code was weird - then you put a little extra postage on it and you were done.
Not any more.
I mailed one of my books to Canada today, my little part in an interesting drama that involved several people trying to get a book to Bene Diction. Long story. You can read about it on Bene's blog if you want. Anyway, I showed up at my local UPS store thinking I would drop the book in the mail and be done in a minute or two. No sir. I was there for thirty minutes while the UPS store employees tried to work through the new, "safer" mailing regulations for packages sent to Canada. I guess it has something to do with "Homeland Security."
Does anyone else hate the word "Homeland" when used in this context? I mean, it's not as bad as "Fatherland," but it has the same feel for me.
Before I go further, let me just ask a couple of questions: We are still friends with the Canadians, right? I mean, we're not at war with them or anything, are we? It's hard to keep up these days. We seem to be at war with several countries at any given moment.
Silly me thought we were on friendly terms with our neighbors to the North and, therefore, mailing an innocent, $14 book would not be a problem.
First, there was a complex form to fill out for the government. In quadruplicate, no less. They wanted to know everything about me and the book. Second, there was a similar form for UPS so that they could act as my shipping agent in this dangerous endeavor. I had to describe the book, weigh it, tell them exactly why I was sending it, and even include Bene's friends' home phone number for some reason. I also had to fill out something that instructed UPS about what they should do if the book was not deliverable. The cost of mailing it back to me was so expensive that I selected, "Abandon the package if it cannot be delivered."
Then they took my credit card number in case the recipients refused to pay duty, taxes, and fees. If the book cannot be delivered, I wonder if they will charge me duty before dropping the package into the nearest trash can. Why not? What will I be able to do about it?
That was all fine. I was amused and went along. The last thing really blew my mind. A UPS store employee pushed a complex contract in front of me and asked me to sign it. It was a limited power of attorney giving UPS some kind of power over my life in the event that they need it for unspecified reasons. Sure I could have read the whole thing and brought it to a lawyer, but I'm way too lazy for stuff like that, so I signed it just because I wanted to go home.
Amazing!
rlp
3:53:57 PM 
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