PREPOSTEROUS PACKING PEANUT PREDICAMENT

oh wow.
you are not gonna believe what happened to us

in a nutshell, we went dumpster diving in a 100 cubic feet of packing peanuts in the middle of the mailbox international post office.
oh yes!
isn't our life just so entertaining?


yeah.
i dare you to hang out with us a for a few hours - you may or may not survive - it's likely you would die of embarrassment.

last week we had to head south of the border to pick up some meds. we have a post office box just south of the border where are USA medical orders come - in our house, we've termed these little jaunts south of the border, "drug runs". really dumb, I KNOW - can you imagine if we happened to have a freudian slip of the tongue at customs!? i'm paranoid about that happening!

generally speaking, our drug runs go off without a hitch. we have nexus passes that expedite our border crossings and our post office box is literally a 5 min drive from the border so we're over and back in a flash. the part that takes the longest is actually crossing the border - the US customs guys tend to be very conversational - and so is my husband. sigh. if the kids are with us, they often beg him, "dad, don't develop a personal relationship with the border guard."

i should have known the day was heading for disaster when we pulled up to the border crossing and graham got all tongue tied with the border guard. that is highly unusual.

"what is the purpose of your trip?"

"oh, ummm, we're picking up some ummm, ahhhh, packages." graham babbled

***(PACKAGES? i silently screamed. heavens, that sounds super sketchy. i plastered a smile on my face and demurely folded my hands on my lap)***

"packages? really." came the reply dripping with suspicion, "where are these packages?"

"ummm, at ohhh, just over the hill and around the corner from here." stuttered my husband

***(meanwhile, i'm quietly dying in the passenger seat.)***

"uh, yeah, at um the mailbox...what is it called?" he turned questioningly to me.

i just blankly stared back. my mind doesn't work so well under pressure. i speak very eloquently in my head...the problem is nobody else can hear me.

i don't even know how we got thru the border without getting strip searched. or maybe we did and i just don't remember it. all i know, is that somehow, we made it to mailbox international. i waited in the van as graham popped in to pick up our "packages". i was just starting to unwind from our stressful cross country entry, when all of a sudden graham bolted out of the post office and flung open the van door and shouted,

"you have to come in and help me - i just dropped a bottle of meds into a box of packing peanuts."

normally, my first thought would've been that he was just pulling my leg (he LOVES to get a rise out of me) but he was in such a flap and looked so stressed, i knew he wasn't joking - even though what he was saying sounded preposterous.

i got out and followed graham in to the post office;
the very busy, very crowded post office.
and
then i saw this ginormous cardboard box
"pls tell me you didn't drop it in there?" i gasped, knowing full well that the med we were picking up was in a tiny vial.
a very tiny vial.


yup.
as you might imagine, we made quite the spectacle of ourselves, crawling head first into that ginormous box of peanuts. there was no way to gracefully go about it. head first, butt facing the growing crowd, we sifted thru piles and piles and piles of peanuts. we ended up having to transfer the peanuts into garbage bags to get the volume down enough to even sift thru the peanuts.

we drew quite the crowd of dumbfounded spectators. folks just stood around staring at us.


finally, what was lost was found
and
we made as dignified a retreat as possible.

as we were driving away, i just had a sneaking suspicion that something more was amiss (can you blame me?), so i double checked the invoice that had accompanied our order and then i looked at it in disbelief.
i blinked hard and looked again.
3 meds listed on the invoice;
2 meds in hand.
i blinked hard and looked again.
"concentrate, shan." i thought as panic wafted in thru my haze...numbers are challenging for me so i must not be processing this correctly.
i swallowed hard and eyeballed the figures once again.
and
then i started to hysterically laugh and laugh and laugh
and
then i turned to my husband and chortled, "we have to go back. we're still missing a bottle. you must have dropped two."

yup.
back to the post office...and a new set of folks to watch us sift thru a 100 cubic feet of packing peanuts.



at this point, all i can say is that i think mayhem is my middle name. i'm surprised i'm not certifiably nuts yet. as i ping pong from one preposterous predicament to another, having this blog has been my saving grace; it is my antidote to keep from going nuts. yup. as i surfed thru that box of nuts, not once but twice, the ONLY thing that kept me from losing my mind was the thought,

"this is gonna make one great story for my blog."

and that is why, in the midst of this preposterous predicament, i had the presence of mind to snap a couple of pictures.