Never let it be said that I travel light. I always aspire to travel lighter, but thus far it has never happened. “Oh, you’re checking a bag?” people ask me, as if that is a ridiculous concept for such a short visit, wherever I’m going. But yes, I know myself well enough to know that, if the luggage isn’t full when I leave home, it will be overflowing when I return. It is just how I roll.
When I’m returning “home” as it were, I am inclined to ship things home either to myself or to someone who I’ve left behind. It used to be the easiest thing to just pop stuff into a poly bag and leave it up to the whims of the shipping lanes for how long it took to arrive. There have been blessed times when the package got snuck onto an airplane by mistake and took just six days instead of six weeks at a bargain-basement shipping cost. I am here to tell you, as an international traveler in modern-day times, those days are firmly over.
I step inside my friendly post office in my hometown on the East Coast of England — (about 15 people deep because of all the post office closures they have had over there and post offices now second as a bank and locale to collect your pension, as well as a stationary supplier) — and await my turn. My package of overseas guilt to the husband is nicely wrapped and ready to go with a couple of super T-shirts inside. “It can just go by sea,” I advise the nice young chap with confidence in my voice.
“It’s likely cheaper to go by air?” he responds. Like what and when did this obscenity occur? I’ve been shipping my parcels for near-on 40 years from over there to over here. It has been a pleasant arrangement that I really wished to continue. But here we are. Times, they have a-changed.
Mr. Postal Worker proceeds to slowly type up a rather laborious-looking label, asking me all kinds of security questions about the innocent couple of shirts that were hiding inside. Having ascertained the interior value of these sale rack shirts, he then proceeds to inform me that there will be a tariff charged in addition to the rather-skyrocketing fee to mail these now rather sad-feeling shirts to my beloved across the world.
“The tariff is a percentage of the item value,” he advises, as I glare back at him like the unhappy customer I most certainly was. “It’s the U.S. government’s fault.” He explains, preaching to the choir. “Yes,” I sigh, hearing all the echoing sighs behind me from folks wishing they had not decided to come at this time to their local post office, where this quasi-American broad was trying to send parcels back home. Laughable, I’m sure they all thought. Oh, and — surprise, surprise — the rates have gone up exponentially, never mind the tariffs!
Move stage a short flight away from London Heathrow to the Isle of Man, which — grab a regular world map — can be found in the middle of the Irish Sea, between England and, yes, Ireland. It’s a wonderfully wild and remote spot with only two flights a day available to get there from London and that is only if the weather is being kind. During my flight on this seemingly fair May day, we arrived at the Ronaldsway Airport in fog, circled for 30 minutes trying to land and then, to everyone’s huge relief, were finally able to land on the Isle of Man after all and not have to return to London Airport. That’s island living for you!
On the Isle of Man, now preparing for its annual, world-renowned “TT” motorcycle races, there are cool shirts and souvenirs to be had everywhere you go. I thought husband might appreciate one of those, plus I found some nice bits for our new grandbaby due next month. Again, I wrapped and packaged up the goodies to ship home. In “who cares about the tariffs” mode and not wishing to squeeze these items in my already-growing bag, I boldly google the closest post office to my hotel, which happened to be inside a “Spar” supermarket.
Well, that’s a pretty good idea, I thought to just myself. The post office part did not seem to take up much room and was providing quite the service to the locals. The Spar lady was filling up grocery shelves as I wished her a good morning. She scowled at me and got slowly to her feet to head over to the post office counter. “Where to?” she asks a bit grumpy. “The USA?” I query, gently, in case she had an opinion about it. “No, you’ll have to go to the main post office,” she advises, quite relieved, seemingly. “We can’t ship there.”
“Oh, well thanks anyway,” I smile sweetly and jump back into the car. (What’s the point of a post office inside Spar, if they won’t ship to places?) Negotiating a parking spot near the main post office in Douglas is not for the faint of heart, apparently. Fortunately, the “Clonker” as I called my little rental car could slide into the merest of spaces and I took off at a pace in case there was parking control at that little spot and I was tempting the wrath of the rather energetic traffic wardens.
I find the main post office — a beautifully airy and quiet building — and smile widely at the official clerk behind the counter, who had to know what she was doing because she was wearing her designated postal uniform and waiting to be of service to me.
“I need to send these to the United States,” I advise firmly, as if I too knew what I was doing.
“Oh no,” she tapped her pen, nervously. “We are not allowed to ship there at the moment.” “What? I shipped parcels from England!” I venture carefully, in case that might change her mind.
“It’s the tariffs,” she whispers, looking around her, cautiously. “We can’t figure out how to charge them, so we don’t.”
Well, blow me down with a feather. The wonderful tariffs that are supposed to bring more money to American coffers are, in fact, having a super-adverse effect overseas. People do not know how to charge for them, they don’t want to charge them, so they just don’t. I can only imagine the impact this is having on our U.S. postal service if this is the case the world over, which I highly suspect it is!
I was advised, when I previously shipped a parcel from my friendly local post office in Soledad to the U.K., that the recipient would be charged a fee at the other end. To date this has never happened, but oh my word, what a mess.
I ended up taking my now rather worn-looking parcels back to the Clonker, back to the hotel, re-opening them and stuffing them unceremoniously into my over-filling bag. I sighed a lot that day I can tell you, but at least I didn’t get a parking ticket. Modern day traveling is something else, I tell you. And not likely to improve anytime soon.
