Let Me Count The Weighs
Don’t think for even a minute it stands for United Parcel Service when I know for a fact that it stands for Universal Parenting Stupidity. Don’t believe me? Spend ten minutes at a UPS store and see for yourself. During my last three visits I witnessed, participated in, and listened to tales of more ridiculous parenting than I ever dreamed possible. When it comes to our precious darlings living away from home, how do we love them? Let me count the weighs.
There’s a little bit of sport in what I’m about to convey. After all, who doesn’t like tattling? I enjoyed watching the mom in front of me pay $150 dollars to overnight the $20 Target lamp to her child at college. As she left, I shared an eye-roll with Louis, my UPS customer server. We understood each other.
“Is that the craziest thing you’ve ever seen?” I asked as I placed my packages on the counter.
“Not even close,” he said. “The other day, a lady spent $9,000 to ship $4,000 worth of furniture.”
Keith and Kristin, who also work at my UPS store, giggled. Kristin said, “I had a mom come in here with cheap posters that we shipped, overnight, for $200.”
Louis countered, “What about the lady who spent $396 to send Gatorade, Swedish Fish, Jiffy Pop, and Sour Patch Kids to her kid in Boston?”
“$396 dollars?” I asked.
“Yeah. We had to bubble wrap the Gatorade and ship it in an 18” x18” x18” box. And she wanted it there overnight.” Louis laughed.
Keith chimed in, “One mom shipped condoms.” Overnight shipping might not have been fast enough is what I thought. But I didn’t say it.
Placing my boxes on the counter, I realized I might have been a little too quick to judge and condemn those other mothers. A simple text of a request from my daughter, who was in the midst of setting up her first apartment in Boston, is all it took. Here I stood, shipping her my starter set of china, which I bought 31 years ago for $45. “How much to get these to Boston?” I’d wrapped the dishes myself in three separate boxes.
“$59.20, $15.63, and $30.50.” I gasped. I was about to pay $105.33 to send 19 pieces of a 20-piece dinnerware set. (Somewhere between 1985 and 2016, a dinner plate cracked. It happens.) Before I boxed up the dishes, I had done a little on-line research. My precious darling could have purchased a brand new 20-piece set of dinnerware for about $60. And that includes free shipping.
“Don’t tell anyone how much I’m spending on this,” I said as I swiped my card. “It’s always the moms, isn’t it, who ship things?” I asked Louis, who at this point felt like an old friend.
“Well, I did have one dad come in and ship a glass bong to his kid at school. It went to Colorado. University of Boulder I think.” What a lovely gesture. So sentimental. Universal Parenting Stupidity: parceling our love one overpriced shipment at a time.
