Brides Maid Express

We ordered the Brides Maid dresses ourselves from the same store Rachael got her dress. They came in last week. So the next order of business was to get them sent to the respective brides maids.

One of the best things - I thought - that has come about in the past few years is the FedEx/Kinkos... open 24 hours. I have sent resumes from there, faxed documents, made copies... all in the evening.. ok late night. So one night we decided we'd go out to dinner and then take the dresses to the FedEx/Kinkos to send them out. We left the house around 7:30 or so.

Anyway, after dinner we went to the FedEx place (around 9:30 pm). Rachael asked, "Do you think they take packages at all hours?" I didn't see any reason why they wouldn't so I thought I would go in and check. I walked in and stood at the counter. There were some people making copies and using the internet and what not as I looked around. Finally, this guy came up and I asked "Can we bring stuff in to send now?" He said "Yeah. What do you have to send?" I said "It's in the car, I'll go get it."

I went to the car and Rachael and I grabbed the dresses (3 total) and headed in. We took them and placed them on the counter, and waited. As we waited we looked at the boxes to see which one would be best. Again the same guy came up and said "You want to send these suits?" I said "Well, they're dresses, but yeah. We have three dresses going to three different places."

When I said this, it looked like I just gave the guy a calculus problem to figure out. He put his hand on his head and his eyes bulged out. After a few seconds he said "Okay." He then followed that with "I'm not the regular FedEx guy, but we'll see what we can do."

Okay. Maybe I'm not familiar with the complexities of sending something FedEx, but I think it's similar to US mail, but by a different carrier. I mean, you get a box. Put a dress in and put the address on it. Weigh it to price it, and do that three times. And we would have provided the addresses... he wouldn't have to guess them or figure them out solving a series of riddles. I have sent more than one piece of mail out in a day before, and I haven't found it all that difficult. It's not like the dresses needed special packaging, it's just fabric. Nothing breakable, and the bridesmaids would be getting them altered anyway, so wrinkles and stuff were not a worry for us. But somehow this guy felt like I gave him a task that was clearly beyond his knowledge. He looked a little rattled. In his mind, I had just asked him to figure out the future of Social Security. He asked for help from another worker, and they disappeared among the boxes. Rachael and I looked at each other in a confused look.

In a minute or so they emerged again, and the guy said "You might want to come back tomorrow." What? Really? You can't handle mailing stuff? "The regular guy will be in." The helpful woman said "Yeah, he'll be here until 3:00, it gets crowded so you may want to come at two." The guy convinced us that he would not be able to send them successfully because both Rachael and I didn't push back at all, we simply said "okay," grabbed the dresses and headed out.

We were thoroughly confused when we got in the car. We sat for a second, and then I started giggling. We made fun of this guy the entire drive home and his ineptness of sending three packages. When I went in and he thought it was one, he seemed okay with it, but when presented with doing the same action three times, he just couldn't fathom how to do it. The complexity overwhelmed him.

Luckily Rachael was able to take them the following day and got the expert. The 24 hour FedEx/Kinkos had let us down. Obviously, they may have some kinks to work out. Thank goodness Rach had the mail expert send them the next day, otherwise we would have been lost.