Apparently there's an art...

Its my friend's The Henry's son's birthday here soon, so Kaylin and I bought him a few presents to send back to Germany. Today I finally managed to get it wrapped up. Not knowing if the post office would ship a box just wrapped normally in wrapping paper, I wrapped the box twice. *Insert laugh here*

I got everything wrapped, labelled and filled out. I knew that I needed a customs form, so I figured that we'd go in there and it wouldn't be a big deal. BOY was I wrong.

Kaylin and I walked in, I had the package in one hand and held her hand in the other. We got in there and I found a customs form. Knowing from experience in Germany there are 2 different kinds of customs forms. The first one is small, easy to fill out and simple. The second one is big, has boxes that you do individual letters in each, and is massively confusing. In Germany I always preferred to fill out the first one, because its easier to write on. I don't have neat, tiny handwriting so the bigger form is hard.

I filled out my normal form and stood in line with Kaylin walking around the post office. We got called up and before I could even get my package to the counter the lady says, "Is that going to an APO box?"

"Yes, ma'am." I replied.

"That's the wrong customs form. Anything over 16 oz's has to have the big customs form." She replied, with an attitude. I stopped dead in my tracks, turned around and headed back to fill out a new form. There isn't a difference in Germany. She acts like everyone and their sister is supposed to know there is a difference. I filled out the new form, not as easily but it was done. I headed back up to the counter with Kaylin at my feet. I handed her everything and she looks over the box.

"Well its not taped right." There's an ART to taping wrapping paper on a box? WTF?!?! "You can't blame us if it doesn't get their because its not taped right."

"That's fine, I'm not worried about it." She gave me a nasty look and checked the dimensions of the box. She gave me a price for priority shipping, I said it was fine and asked her for 14 stamps as well. She rang everything up and I swiped my card.

"Is your card signed?" She asked in her snoody, mail lady voice. I nodded and showed her the back of my card and my military ID. I placed the stamps on Kaylin's thank you cards and she said that there is a difference in customs forms.

"Well I just got back from Germany and there was no difference in the forms." So how the heck was I supposed to know that there was this huge difference?!

"Well sweetie you're not in Germany anymore. This is America. We have a different system then they do." Thanks for clearing THAT up. I was convinced I was in Canada or Mexico. Its not like I run the post office to know there is a difference between the mail systems of APO and the US. I handed her the thank you cards, told her to have a nice day and walked out the door with Kaylin.

Apparently there is a lost art of customs form filling out that people need to be aware of now. *rolls eyes* I'm fairly certain that here in the US, there aren't many happy mail people anymore.