Friday’s a slow day. Well, it is where I’ve been...for two and a half hours.
Here…
That Neo-Classical gem that is the Manila Central Post Office. The picture must have been taken in 1763 as I've never even seen water in the fountain, let alone in operation.
Parcels. We all like parcels. Stuff winging its way across the globe to your front door, bringing surprise and joy. Even the most mundane can cause a frisson of excitement, but this was special.
I’d ordered two lots of parts from overseas, some interior bits from the US last April (!) and a brake modulator repair kit posted from Australia on December 11.
Thursday I was handed a card by apartment reception telling me a package was awaiting me at the post office and that I had 14 days to claim it before it became the property of the state.
Which would it be? And what would the Republic of the Philippines do with a 1995 Range Rover brake modulator repair kit anyway, if indeed that’s what it was?
I had bets laid in my head but as I’ve just about given up on the States (along with much of the rest of the world) the hot favourite was Aus.
Now, before we go any further, this is the package…
As you’ll see, against a spectacle case for scale, it needs no special lifting equipment, no-one needs to go on a manual handling course and zero Permits to Work are required.
So why one hundred and fifty minutes?
Let me take you through the steps.
You arrive at 8am, the normal opening time.
The reasons for this are twofold; 1) to be early in the queue and 2) to get back out before all the container trucks hit the road at 10am, adding a good half hour on the 3km journey home.
Disappointingly, you are not first there but you greet Mildred with a cheery, “Good morning, how are you?” all the same.
She takes your card.
There’s a Little Old Man and a Young Girl before me, both on the same mission.
Mildred wanders off into the depths of darkness that makes up her work place. She returns with your package. Lovely, you think.
She puts it down over here…
You can just see it ringed in red. So near, yet so far. The Little Old Man’s parcel is in blue. Rockin’
A man arrives behind the screen with a carrier bag. That’ll be breakfast then.
Everything stops whilst Mildred and her mates eat. Come on, they’ve been at work for nearly twenty minutes now.
You wait.
Around 8:45 another girl comes along, picks your envelope up. Your hopes rise. She puts it down again and wanders away. Dashed.
I start to wonder if the Little Old Man was actually considerably younger when he first arrived. He has the resigned air and pallid look of a long term inmate.
Five to nine and another girl, looking all efficient, and late, turns up. Ah, that’ll be the actual Customs Lady without which we cannot function.
She sits down and fires up her computer. Having done that, so we can all see the screen scrolling through her wedding photographs, she picks the Little Old Man’s parcel up. You can almost see the adrenaline spike. She puts it down again and goes back to her computer. She then decides that some food is in order. She disappears.
Meanwhile, the place is starting to fill with folk. Me, the Little Old Man and the Young Girl wait.
Card after card are passed through the window to Mildred. She, obviously, does nothing with them.
Eventually, a nameless lady, still chewing, takes the pile of Mildred’s collection and disappears.
Parcels are delivered from behind. They are piled on top of mine, the Young Girl’s and the Little Old Man’s.
A name is called. Is it mine? Not unless I’ve it changed to Jennilyn it’s not.
People come and go – with their parcels. The Little Old Man is now older. So am I, now I think on, and the Young Girl will soon be past marrying age.
Another name is called. It’s that of the Young Girl. She bounds athletically to her feet and heads to the window where her parcel will be opened in front of her and assessed. It is and it is. The parcel is now passed over to Mildred’s window. Mildred is busy with her card collection. The Young Girl sits down again.
Someone at Mildred’s window asks if it’s possible if she could explain the theory behind splitting the atom. Mildred obliges.
Meantime, the Little Old Man’s name is called. He leaps (poetic license) to his feet. I don’t understand that much Tagalog but, upon opening his parcel, it’s discovered that he needs the attention of a more Senior Customs Person.
The Young Girl’s package is now ready for collection and she stands, but Mildred is now answering a question about solar flares. Young Girl sits down again.
I hear something that could, on a good day sound like, “George”. Energised, I rush to the window. Customs Girl takes a sharp knife to my envelope. She removes a little bag containing some O-rings and another with two stainless washers to replace the original plastic ones which, by now, will have degraded and are about to cause catastrophic brake failure. She looks at this and then at me. Must be some sort of pervert? A third bag contains a memory stick.
“What this?”
“A memory stick”
“Know that, what on it?
“Instructions about things you can do with a bag of O-rings and two stainless washers. What are you doing tonight?”
Envelope is thrown towards Mildred’s window. Was that a look of disgust?
09:50, Mildred has now finished explaining about tectonic plates, continental drift and how this causes the Asian Ring of Fire and calls the Young Girl over. Money changes hands, parcel received and the Young Girl dashes home before she is over child bearing age.
Meanwhile, the Little Old Man is still having his parcel examined. Not sure what was said but I got the impression that the Customs Lady was wondering why he was only now picking up some stuff he’d ordered on ebay in 1943. He was probably only notified of its existence on Wednesday.
Mildred picks up my envelope, looks and then starts to explain Newton’s First Law of Motion to a lady with two young children.
Eventually, physics lesson over, I am divested of 120 Peso (around two quid) and my envelope is passed to me.
It takes an hour to get home, because the things you want to happen early never do, and those you want late never are.
So yes, a slow day and I’m guessing Monday to Thursday aren’t much quicker.
But yes, we'll be taking appropriate precautions.
