Last week I decided to send a friend something for his birthday, and surprisingly I planned ahead. Not only that, but I followed through with those plans, and 40 minutes before my 9 AM class I set out to FedEx with a fresh cake, book, and card, ready to take on the day.
Now, I consider myself a fairly lucky person. The only thing about it is my luck seems to operate under Murphy's Law*, which on one hand means when I'm unintentionally unprepared, things tend to turn out okay or better. However this also means that when I'm prepared or overprepared, life gets interesting.
First off, and most time-killing, I was sent to the wrong address. The street number and name were all correct, only the town wasn't. I live on this northern sliver of a section of one town, that is about .5 miles east of the next town and .1 miles west of another. And apparently the different organizers of these tightly packed communities decided they like each other so much they would use some of the same street names**. And so, I drove in the completely wrong direction, into a neighborhood that has yet to establish a FedEx.
Upon figuring out the correct address and cursing the Maps App or address from the website (wasn't really sure where the mistranslation occurred), I quickly drove to FedEx, sacrificing a bit of my car's underbumper*** on a too-lately-spotted dip in the road. By now the morning drizzle had augmented to a dull downpour, but I managed to swiftly and gracefully make it into FedEx.
At the counter I was told that legally they are not allowed to package food and I would have to do it myself at a separate counter (challenge accepted). First, I had to be given the correct size box. Interestingly, my pan dimensions must have increased by half an inch in the course of baking, and I was told that it was just slightly (I cannot express how slightly) too big for their small box sizes. So the 13x9" pan would have to go in a 17x17x7" box.
So after assembling the box with help from a wily tape dispenser and a counter not kind to the vertically challenged, I was faced with the decades-old problem of "How much bubble wrap is too much?" The answer is no such thing, but I used all of a 30 or 50 foot roll next to the counter, sealed up the overcompensating package, and returned to the first counter to wait for the associate who had been amusingly watching me struggle the past ten minutes.
Now, I knew the bubble wrap was about $12, the box around $3, there would be tax, and of course some hefty fee for priority overnight ninja mail to make sure the cake didn't spoil. The associate rang it up and mumbled my total as she reached for something under the counter.
"I'm sorry - what was that again?" I thought I had heard 73-something, which was okay, up there but not insane.
The associate stood back up. "$173.17"
I'm hoping I wasn't frozen in shock too long, before looking at the clock, seeing I had 8 minutes to get to class across town, and making the conclusion it was not worth figuring out what the ultimate mailing-priority-cost efficiency was.
I passed my credit card over, rushed out the door and made it only 10 minutes late to class. I then proceeded to stalk-track my package the next 24 hours, partly to make sure I got my money's worth, but also secretly hoping that they were delayed and I could score even a partial refund.
And that is how I learned to never ship 4 lbs across country overnight.
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I have a few friends from home that have accused me of getting "west coast" on them - you know, eating farmer's market over fried chicken****, trying alternative forms of exercise (such as hiking regularly), and generally being more active and healthy. And while yes, there have been a few healthy lifestyle changes I've picked up, I may have overdone it with bikram yoga.
Bikram yoga (which I have accidentally called Brickman, Birkham, among other pianist-sounding names) is a certain series of fairly static yoga poses performed while in a very hot room. The particular studio my roommates, roommate's friend, and I tried had 90 minutes sessions at about 100 degrees. I had planned to work out Friday anyway, and I thought changing up my routine would be a good thing. Foolish mortal.
Imagine a brightly-lit, carpeted sauna, packed with people of a variety of age in a variety of clothes-coverage; an annoyingly-serene auctioneer in only a short towel raffles off stretch instructions while sitting cross-legged on a baby lifeguard stand. Two adjacent full-wall mirrors allow one to see just how red and sweaty you are in comparison to your fellow hellmates, at least the ones that are still standing. Your thoughts proceed down a path that you feel many have paved before you...'this isn't so bad'...'a bit difficult, but I'm not that flexible'...'it's not so much the poses as the heat'...'this is almost like meditating, only very uncomfortable'...'"breathe threw your nose" sure easy for you to say, mouth-breather'...'do my eyelids have sweat glands? I feel like I'm visually drowning'...'don't look at the clock, don't look at the clock'...'what is time, anyway? or pain? or heat?'...'nope this is what hell is like, has to be'...'okay one look at the clock - 80 minutes left?!'...
To add to this unique experience, I forgot to bring water, but was rescued halfway through by my nearby gracious roommate. I also laid my yoga mat and towel down right in front of the heater, a fact I failed to note until about 5 minutes into the some of the 90 longest minutes of my young life.
Dehydrated, gross, and body on fire, we emerged from the depths of bikram to a sweet cool drizzle. To be fair, I didn't completely hate it - in fact I had wanted to go back on Monday, but a joyous trip to urgent care nipped that in the bud. But that's for another post.
*Murphy's Law is "If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it", and has been pop culturally shortened to "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong". Some fun corollaries are "Matter will be damaged in direction proportion to its value", "If you decide to switch lines, your new line will stop and your previous line will speed up", and "If you apply Murphy's Law, it will no longer be applicable".
** I know for sure of two pairs of streets that have the same name, run parallel to one another, and are less than a mile apart (but different zip codes)...but there are probably more.
*** I have no idea where the bumper stops and the undercarriage begins, and a quick internet search leads me to conclude that I'm not alone and that many people think their mechanics are idiots.
**** I love the farmer's market, but I'm still not sure what the big deal about avocados are. I mean, I know they're very nutritious,but they also have the texture of a chalky lozenge.
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