From Grandma, With Love

In a previous post, I wrote about what Seattlites are calling Snowmageddon.  They have had several heavy snows (for them), one on top of the other, with no thaw in between.  I mentioned that before the second storm hit, grocery stores were stripped bare of food and anything weather-related.  (My son-in-law went out to buy a snow shovel one evening.  The clerk said they'd had 450 shovels that morning.  Denis got one of the last four.)  I think I also mentioned that I had shipped a box of cookies out to them.  Timing was of the essence.

Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?  Well...not so much.  These weren't just cookies.  These were Girl Scout cookies.  They are only available once a year, and my family loves them.  I thought it would be a nice treat if I shipped a few boxes to my Washington family.

The cookies aren't cheap.  They are $5 a box here in Indiana; however,  I do like to support the organization, and one of my former students has a child who is an active scout.  I texted my grandkids and daughter to ask what kinds they would like, then bought ten boxes of their favorites from my friend's daughter (plus another seven boxes for me) to send to them.  (I should note that I wasn't intending to eat seven boxes of Girl Scout cookies myself.  I bought them to give to my cleaning gal and some friends.  That's my story, anyway!)

Next on the agenda was getting the cookies packed for shipment.  The cookie varieties come in different-sized boxes, so finding a box for all ten to fit in neatly can be tricky.  I usually use what's known by the United States Postal Service as a "large" flat rate box.  You know--the one for which they say, "If it fits, it ships"?  I usually keep a couple on hand here at home but didn't have any of the large ones.  It's almost $19 to ship one of those boxes.  I was afraid that the ten cookie boxes wouldn't fit in one because the USPS idea of large and my idea of large just aren't the same.  I really didn't want to have to use TWO of those boxes, so there was nothing to do but make a trip to the Post Office to pick up a box or two to find out.  Guess what?  They didn't have any.  Okay.  On to Plan B.

The next morning, I fiddled around with the boxes of cookies by playing a cookie version of Tetris, just to see if I could get all ten boxes in one of the cardboard boxes they were delivered in.  With a little creativity, they would fit fairly snugly.  It would have to do!  I had to get inspired, however, because those boxes have a gap in both top and bottom, where the glued flaps don't completely close the box.  And there were cut-out holes for handles that also had to be taped shut.  I happened to find a piece of cardboard to add to the top and bottom on the inside.  (How did I get so lucky???)

I quickly realized that I wasn't going to be able to just slap a paper on top with the To and From addresses because the outside of the box is covered with advertising.  I didn't care to confuse the carrier...so...I dug out some paper grocery sacks to cut up in order to wrap the box completely in brown paper.  I think I used half a roll of packing tape and quite a bit of transparent tape just to get it all encapsulated.  (Not as easy to find paper grocery sacks these days, either.)  To give myself an estimate of how much it would cost to ship, I tried to weigh the box.  My bathroom scale doesn't register without someone on it, so I had to weigh myself without the box, then with the box, and subtract.

Took the box to the Post Office.  I could get 7-day shipping for $20-something, but with the snowstorm predicted to come in, I bit on the bullet to fork over $31 for 2-day delivery.  This was on a Wednesday.  The box was promised for Friday,  The snow storm was forecast for Thursday night into Friday.  It was going to be close!

It's winter, you know?  It snows in the winter every place in the civilized world except Seattle, where it mostly just rains all season.  They might get an inch here or an inch there, which is usually gone by the next day when it rains again.  One wouldn't think that snow would slow things down that much.  WRONG!  It's hilly out there.  My family lives halfway up a steep grade.  Their mail is delivered further up the hill to a cluster of locked boxes.  In other words, they must leave the house and climb the hill in order to collect their mail, IF the mail truck can make it up the hill at all.

The snow arrived to the tune of eight inches deep Thursday on into Friday, with no thaw anywhere in the forecast for a week.  Friday came and went.  No mail and no cookies.  Saturday came and went.  Still no mail or cookies.  Of course, there is no delivery on Sunday.  On Monday, the package tracking system finally moved from "in transit" to "out for delivery".  Really??  On that hill???   At one point, the tracking said, "Delivered".  Yay!  The mail delivery truck had tire chains on it, but even cars with chains were having trouble getting up the hill.  Mr. Mailman finally succeeded.

I tell this long, overly-detailed story by way of explanation of just how difficult it can be to do just one simple little thing, and how foolish I felt about it when all was said and done.  I mean, they have Girl Scouts in Washington.  I'm quite certain my family could buy their own boxes of cookies if they felt the need.  I don't know why it seemed so blasted important for me to send them, especially since I spent over $30 in shipping charges for an assortment of cookies that only cost $50 to begin with.  Who does that?  I do, I guess.  I did it because I wanted to.  I wanted my family to know that I was thinking of them, which they surely already know, right?

When I got word that the cookies had been delivered, I alerted my daughter who sent Denis up the hill in the snow after dark to retrieve the box.  There had been more heavy snow on top of what they already had.  Schools were closed (still are).  No one could get up or down the hill.  The whole neighborhood was trapped in their homes.  Megan took a picture of Denis trudging up the hill, and then video'd his return to the house.  He looked like Bigfoot in the snow!

The unexpected result of my going to all that trouble and expense just to send some cookies to my family was that it seemed like Christmas to them.  Like an oasis in the desert.  Their supply of sweet treats had dwindled, and they couldn't go anywhere to restock.  But here comes the long-anticipated box of cookies from home.  Not even homemade cookies but just as welcome.  And you know what?  I felt pretty good about that!

Thereafter, my daughter posted the following on my Facebook page, which totally made my day:

  Megan: Captain's Log, Day 9: Despite our harrowing refueling mission on Day 5, supplies are dwindling again. We're out of yogurt. The bananas are gone. The treats long vanished--like popcorn before the start of a movie. Morale is low, boredom is high. Denis went out into the great white world to see what he could scavenge from the snow. I watched his shadowy form disappear into the flurries, fearing he would not survive... But lo! He returned triumphant, bearing a curious brown package. It was packed with cookies and Grandma's love, sent from the distant land of Indiana. I think we just might make it after all!