One last rant...

Nearly home!

I'm back in Canada, at my grandfather's place in Toronto (where, *gasp, he only has dial-up internet access) loving the cold weather and thankful to be done with my awfully long journey.

(Yes, I know I always complained about the cold in Jordan, but for some reason the Canadian cold is so much more bearable. Perhaps it's because my parents brought me my snowboarding jacket to wear and the house is actually heated and insulated).

Today I'll be driving up north to Collingwood with my brothers, who just flew in from Whistler last night. It's a strange coincidence that all of the Peacock children arrived at Pearson Airport all in the same day.

So while all seems well, now that I'm home, there are a number of unneeded stresses I'm having to deal with.

First of all, Air France lost one of my suitcases (I know a few of you will not be surprised) and Aramex is a crummy shipping company and my poor boxes I sent home look like they've barely survived their journey.

In fact I honestly suspect they were opened somewhere along the way, rifled through and re-sealed in a careless manner. When my father and I went to pick them up at the airport cargo area my first reaction to seeing them was, "Oh my God."

They looked like they had been sat on. The tape was all peeling off and the flaps were partially open. I hoped everything inside survived the abuse they had obviously taken in the past week and a half!

But when I got to my grandfather's place and went to open them, I noticed something. You see, I had taped the boxes up over and over with BROWN packing tape. I tripled taped every corner and seal to ensure the boxes were as secure as they could possibly be. I was confident the boxes would not open on the trip.

However when I went to open the boxes here, I noticed that the reason the flaps were partially open was because my brown packing tape had been sliced along the flaps on all sides and then re-sealed with one strip of CLEAR packing tape.

When I realized this my heart stopped. Who went through my stuff and is anything MISSING??

When I looked through everything, most of my gifts and clothes seemed to still be there. However, the boxes do feel a lot lighter than when I shipped them and I won't really know for sure until I empty it all out and do an inventory check with a list I have on my laptop. That will have to wait until Collingwood.

But still, I was (and am) PISSED. Aramex is sooo getting a claim filed against them. Even though it may have been someone in Dubai or in London, the box is supposed to be in their care. They are the ones who ensured my belongings would make it safely to the destination.

So in addition to possibly having some of my gifts stolen from my boxes, I am also missing one of my gigantic suitcases.

I recall, waiting at the luggage carosel, thinking it was taking forever for that last suitcase to show up. I recall looking over at a family leaving with their bags and thinking, huh - that one bag the father has on his cart kind of looks like mine. But then I dismissed the thought, because I couldn't really see that well cause I was wearing a pair of old prescription glasses and really, who in their right mind would mistake my heavy-ass suitcase (that was over the weight limit) for theirs??

But when my bag didn't show up and I was told no more suitcases were coming, I wished I had run after that man.

The Air France people had about 10 other passengers who were missing suitcases. Some of them they had on a list - they knew the suitcases were missing, but no worries because they've already been located in other places. Mine? Not on the list. The man said it should have arrived.

I said no, I think it's been stolen.

The man and the woman at the counter laughed politely. They assured me on occasion people mistake suitcases for their own, but they always bring them back when they realise they've got someone elses.

I said, what if they took it on purpose? What then?

They looked at me like I was a maniac. They looked at me like I had no faith whatsoever in humanity.

Well I didn't!!

On a family trip to Hawaii once, a man tried to steal one of our suitcases. He happened to have a bunch that looked like ours, and decided to take ours, thinking he could quietly escape with it. Thankfully my father spotted him with it (my dad, the ever-resourceful man, had taped ducktape around the suitcase so we would recognize it) chased him down, and nearly tore the man's head off.

So I know it happens.

But all they could do was have me fill out a form and tell me to call them the next day.

"We'll have your suitcase for you and will deliver it to your home," the man said, confidently. But then he looked at my doubtful expression and added, "Hopefully."

This kind of stress is really not needed right now. That bag better show up and I better discover that all my gifts and belongings are in my boxes, where I left them.

* * *

I will post again about the rest of my trip when I get to a computer with high-speed access. I just wanted to get all this ranting out of the way so I don't have to have so much negativity in, what will most likely be, my last post.