Monkeys do it in China!!

As a follow up to my earlier post I describe to you how a relatively simple task to others became a moment in the life of tragically charmed me...

If you have been following my story you know that 3 1/2 months ago I broke up with the EX. As some of you also know I have been hearing from him on an almost daily basis since about 2 weeks into the breakup.  What many of you don't know is that when he left he left almost all his things at my house.  Everything has been taking care of except for three bags of stuff that was in my shed....until today.

As part of the daily communications from the EX the last several weeks he had made inquiries into what exactly was in the bags he left.  I decided that I was tired of him having a reason to contact me so it was time to do something about the bags.  Now I know there are a few of you out there whose first thought is "WOMAN! Why the hell don't you just throw the damn bags away?" And yes that thought did occur to me.  But some of the stuff in the bags is what I like to call "keepsakes" - a family bible, yearbooks, pictures of family.  And being the good person I am and a person that sooner or later (hopefully this Fall) is going to call upon God for some help and I would like to be able to remind Him of my good deeds. (This is made all the more important with Atlantic City looming ahead) So with the help of the sister who is currently living with me I dragged the bags up to my room to sort out the junk from the keepsakes.  Now 85% of it got trashed but there was enough stuff in there that I decided that I would ship it to him.  Here is where the fun begins....

So the first thing that I needed was a box.  And I also needed to do it right away before my inertia set in.  So I decided to go buy at box....at FedEx...simple enough task.  I was met by a nice FedEx lady who was gracious enough to inform me that if I brought in whatever I was shipping they would be happy to pack it for me....Ummmm...HELL NO! I was not ready for the embarrassment of dragging a bag full of my ex's stuff into FedEx for the world to see...I will just take the box home and pack it myself.  So I bought a $3 box...happy with my purchase I made my way home. 

I am not sure if anyone out there has ever bought a box before but it doesn't come as a "box".  It is flat.  Not box-like at all.  But I wasn't worried.  Surely somewhere on this flat piece of cardboard there had to be instructions that would turn this into what I needed...a box.  Wrong....no instructions! My first thought was "WHO THE HELL SELLS A BOX WITHOUT INSTRUCTIONS!" My second thought "Let's text the wise sister...she will know what to do!" Here verbatim is the text the wise sister sent back...."OMG...How hard can it be....monkeys do it in China!!!"...Great so now I have been told that I am stupider than a monkey!! I DO NOT NEED THIS! So my next thought was "I need a lesbian!" which is pretty much my thought whenever faced with a task I do not want to do.  So I sent a text to the lesbian sister who is not very busy.  Of course that lesbian sister also happens to be the lesbian sister who sleeps til noon.  So that was not useful.  What to do? What to do?  I know....GOOGLE! There has to be instructions out there on how to make a box....if I was really lucky there would be a video!  As often happens at my house and in my life God was kind to me and at the exact moment I sat down to google in walks a former lesbian and her monkey baby thinking today was Wednesday and I needed her to babysit. HALLEFREAKINGLUJAH! If there was anyone on the planet that could put a box together it was HER!! And she did! Task completed! I had a box!

So next I threw all the stuff in the box and was ready to go back to FedEx...so I picked up the box....so here in my story I should let you know that FedEx boxes are made to hold a certain weight depending on the box...and also that tape on the bottom of a box greatly increases the amount of weight a box can hold.  I should also point out that I had bought a box that could safely hold about 20lbs...I also had no tape.  I had packed about 30lbs of stuff.  So you can picture what happened next when I lifted the box off my bed to carry it downstairs...go ahead...picture it...I will pause for a moment.  Yep that is what happened.  The entire bottom gave way and all the stuff fell out all over my floor!  And in that moment I did what all good drama queens do....I sat down in my floor among the mess and SOBBED!

After sobbing for a good five minutes the new voice inside my head spoke up and said "Girl get it together....you will not be defeated!" So what to do next.  So I remembered that the nice FedEx girl said they would pack the stuff for me...and they have to see a lot of weird shit being shipped right? So let's bite the bullet and take the stuff up there and just do this! So I put all the stuff in a green bag, slapped on some sunglasses to hide my puffy eyes, put on a baseball cap so that the next time I have something normal to ship they wouldn't recognize me and grabbed my inefficient box and went back up to FedEx.

The nice girl from before was nowhere to be seen but I was greeted by FedEx church lady...I will explain later why I am calling her this.  She asked how she could help me and I said the first thing that came to my mind "I need to ship this stuff to my ex who left it in my house 3 months ago when he left me for another girl and moved to Texas!"...I am not sure why I said all that.  I could have said anything...but the earlier events had left me unable to think of anything quickly so that was all that I had.  She looked a little taken aback but she quickly recovered and went about helping me.  She took the inefficient box and with a little tape made it work. She then went about packing the stuff up...everything was going fine until she reached for the bubble tape! Bubble tape? Really? Did this woman not understand that this stuff had sat in my shed for over 3 months....that this stuff was always 2 more cocktails away from being a bonfire? And she was bubble taping it!!  So I said to her "You know that really isn't necessary".  That is when she LOVINGLY picked up the family bible and said to me "these things should be packed nicely, it is a family bible" Great! I got the FedEX church lady packing my stuff! I couldn't stop myself..I said "Seriously? This bubble tape isn't costing me more money is it?" She said no....and continued to bubble tape.  And all I could think of was "Fuck! That fucking douchebag is going to think that I actually CARED about his SHIT...I am totally being FUCKED OVER BY THE FEDEX CHURCH LADY!"...Finally it was all packed and taped and addressed.  It cost me $40 to send it.  Best $40 spent in a looooong time.  

Although I do still wish I could have done it my way.....just thrown all the shit in a big heap in a well taped box!....I was totally screwed by that damn box....if only I had a monkey:(

Daily Epiphany for July 12, 2011

There seems to be two types of people in the world.  There is the first type who when they need to go from Point A to Point B they just go and get there...end of story. Nothing remarkable happens, it just is the way it is.  And then there is the second type who when they need to go from Point A to Point B they just go...and all of sudden there are flying monkeys, talking cats and clowns....and not the good sort of clowns but the evil sinister clowns! Everything is an adventure, nothing is simple.  Do I need to tell you what sort of person I am? More of my story to follow.....

Definition of epiphany

1. sudden realization: a sudden intuitive leap of understanding, especially through an ordinary but striking occurrence
2. appearance of god: the supposed manifestation of a divine being

I like the phrase "ordinary but striking occurrence" That is how life tends to work...out of the most simpliest things comes the greatest messages.  I am back:)