Flash Dance

Gwynn's Island Bridge

Once upon a time, Chesapeake Bay Woman actually had a functioning brain, a brain that could retain things like the Portuguese word for breakfast or the major accomplishments of the Maya, the Inca and the Aztec.  She could write college level essays on the rise and fall of civilizations in several different languages.

Then one day--seemingly overnight--she became a stressed out person of middle age assuming she lives to be NINETY TWO! who stood helplessly as she waved bye bye to any hope of ever acting like a normal human being with a normal functioning brain. (Whatever "normal" is. Do you know?  I've never seen it before.  Wouldn't recognize it. Does not compute.)

The following incident proves this point once and for all.

Technically, my deadline for submitting the photos and text for the book on Mathews was yesterday.  However, based on my work schedule, and the fact that I live in such a rural area, I had to have the flash drive containing everything in the mail by the end of last week.

So, I toiled frantically and furiously to finish the thing up so that Friday I could send it all off from a Fed Ex store in Williamsburg near my work.

(Near = 10 miles one way, by the way. So that's 20 miles extra on top of the 100+ miles I would have driven to and from work.  But this isn't about my long commute. It's about my age which I just now determined is more than "middle" age unless I live to be 92 long lost brain.)

When the guy said, "That'll be $30," I grimaced but quickly handed over my debit card. $30 for peace of mind that it was going to get there on time was painful but acceptable. Monday morning-- a day early-- it would arrive, he promised.

Fine.

So I drove back to work, finished up the work day, drove the hour home and stumbled in the door Friday evening, frazzled but relieved. Rummaging around my pocketbook for my cell phone, however, I felt something that should not have been there.

My heart skipped a beat.

It was the flash drive.

The. Flash. Drive.

Yes, Chesapeake Bay Woman spent $30 to send off a nice handwritten note and some other paperwork (which could have been faxed for FREE) all sealed up in an envelope that contained no flash drive. The entire  book was right there in her trembling hand.

Then the reality of it set in. There is no Fed Ex--or UPS or any other form of shipping--store open in Mathews on Saturdays.

(If there is, please don't tell me about it now; it's too late.  If one does exist, they need to list themselves in the Yellow Pages. If they are listed in the Yellow Pages, please don't tell me that either.  I was too stressed out to think clearly.  Or at all, evidently.)

Also, I was not at all sure that the U.S. Pony Express Postal Service could handle getting it there by Tuesday. But all this post office business would have to wait until Saturday morning, because the post office was now closed for the day!

Off I trotted first thing Saturday morning to the Hudgins post office, where the very nice lady looked at me like I had six eyeballs when asked if it would be expensive to ship this one little envelope to South Carolina by Tuesday at the latest, Monday preferably.

She gave me one of those looks.

I pretended not to notice and asked, "Do you think it'll be more than $30?"

Her pursed lips and raised eyebrow told me in no uncertain terms that it would.  She gingerly placed it on the scale, however, and we both were shocked to learn it was "only" $19.00!

"When *cough* will it arrive, roughly, do you think, just a guesstimate?" I asked, not really wanting to know the answer because it had to be bad news.

"Monday."

She said it with as much--perhaps more--conviction as that fancy Fed Ex guy in Williamsburg.

Monday!

And, much to my surprise and relief, it actually did arrive Monday. 

So, let's tally up the cost of this painful ordeal, shall we?

$30.00 - to send paperwork which could have been faxed for free without the flash drive containing all the contents of the book,  the whole point of sending the package.

+

$19.00 to send the flash drive with all the contents of the book and have it arrive on the same day that $30 package did (which tells me I should have used the postal service all along and skipped Fed Ex).

+

one hour away from work and twenty extra miles of driving to send a package that did not contain the flash drive

+

one close call with a major cardiac event after finding the flash drive in my pocketbook when the flash drive was supposed to be en route to South Carolina 

=

Chesapeake Bay Woman has lost the use of her last functioning brain cell. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, and forget about ever speaking or writing in Spanish or Portuguese or even English again.

Case closed.

The End.