Rants and Amusing incidents in Brooklyn

While we're waiting for Iz to post about his amusing yet inconvenient anecdote, I figured I'd share a few of my own choice experiences here in Brooklyn.

Missing Boxes:
Before we so hurriedly left Hawaii we mailed off 3 large boxes of books and whatnot media mail by way of General Delivery (which is a way of sending something to a post office when you don't have an address yet). I had checked out the how-tos online and then taken everything to the Laie PO. I specifically asked if there was a particular PO I needed to send it to and was told that every PO accepts Gen.Del. and to send it the closest one to our probable address. I was also told to go immediately to the PO to fill out any forms for getting G.D. mail. When I got here I went straight to my local PO and was told that I didn't need to fill anything out but to simply wait and check back in a few weeks. Easy peasy. A few weeks go by and I check to see if anything had arrived. After a 20min wait in line I was told that it hadn't yet. I wait another week and go back to wait in another long line to finally be told the following: this PO doesn't accept Gen. Del. mail and only the main branch in Brooklyn Heights does and anything not addressed to that one would be sent back immediately. Huh. So after contacting Laie PO the supervisor there gets into contact with 2 supervisors here both at the PO the boxes were addressed to as well as to the main branch. He tells me that they will look out for my boxes and should call me when it arrives. OK. Crisis averted. Except when I finally get a hold of someone at the main branch I'm told that since I didn't fill out some very important papers that I wasn't on the correct lists and that they would be sent back to sender immediately upon arrival. And yesterday I discovered from my mom that the boxes had arrived back in Laie. Now it all has to be sent again and will take another month to get here. I should rewrap the DVDs and give them to Jarom for his birthday again. Plus there's the problem of how my mom will get these boxes back to the PO since she can't lift any of them herself. Sigh. I love our postal system.

Postal Worker:
Here's a less stressful incident related to postal workers, specifically the 3rd person I talked to at the local PO about the boxes who finally informed me that they don't accept G.D. mail. I told her I had sent 3 boxes from HAWAII. I believe I said Hawaii 2 or 3 times in the course of her questions. Then when she got back from talking with a supervisor she asked me, "So when did you send these boxes from JAPAN?" Seriously, I know I look Japanese but please listen to the words coming out of my mouth. Hawaii sounds nothing like Japan.

UHAUL Worker:
Here's a related experience this time with a UHAUL worker. Yuki Tano and I went to pick up the moving truck and the woman was very sweet and helpful if incredibly slow. I seriously felt like I was back in Grenada as I watched her type in my phone number (incorrectly twice) with one slow, wandering finger. When she saw that I had a Hawaii driver's license she Hmmmmmed and wondered aloud if the computer would have this information as she scrolled down a drop menu of state abbreviations. Yuki and I looked at each other and commented that we both thought the 50th state would be listed. After taking down my license info she asked if I had a passport and then corrected herself as she slowly realized that travelers from Hawaii don't require passports in NY.
All we need is some of that green paper stuff instead of the usual coconut currency we use back home.

Domestics in Ikea:
And now for my rant about strangers butting into my parenting sphere. Back in Grenada random people would feel the need to comment on my parenting techniques. My fellow SGU moms can sympathize with me on this one. I know someone told me some people actually stopped their cars, holding up traffic, in order to tell them they needed to protect their children's eyes from the dusty road. Really? We couldn't have figured that one out ourselves? Anyhow, I mistakenly thought I'd left all that behind. But 2 days ago I felt my blood boil when it happened again. I had just picked up Keahi from the play area in Ikea where you can drop off your kids for one hour while you shop. I was putting away my receipts and filling up a water bottle when Keahi ran off from my side to stand next to the escalator coming up to our level. He was in no danger of being sucked into the escalator or whatever people think happens to kids on these deathtraps and wasn't even in anyone's way since he likes to stand to the side and pretend he's making the escalator come up. But at least 3 women had to crowd around him, stopping traffic in their own way, to fuss over the lost child. One asked him where his mommy was and he calmly pointed over to me under the second escalator going up to the third level. I guess they thought I was on the escalator and called up to some poor asian woman going up to see if she'd left her son behind. There was a lot of fuss involved as I tried to wave to the women and tell them it was my kid who was GASP 20 feet away from me and stubbornly refusing to come as I called him. When I got past them and got Keahi, another "concerned" citizen informed me that "You'd better come and take care of your child because I'm from the ACS and I'd hate to have to take away your child because of neglect." She talked to me as if I was some horrible abusive parent with an overlay of nah-uh-no-you-didn't-with-z-snaps attitude that just exuded professionalism. I had to restrain the urge to deck her and shout at her that I'm pretty sure the crack whores and abusive drunks deserved to be ahead of me in this line of parents from whom she was going to liberate neglected children. And at the same time it scared me that someone like her had the authority to rip children away from their families. Fortunately for her health I walked away to fill up another water bottle for Jarom. When I heard a woman's voice behind me say Excuse me, I had to pause to breathe deeply to brace myself for more criticism but it was only an old lady asking me where I'd gotten my shopping cart. Apparently she didn't feel I needed a lecture on parenting. Who knows, maybe in her lifetime she'd even lost a kid or two in a department store. Wonder if someone took away her kids because of neglect.