a wild parcel chase

I started this back in August and only just finished it. I am not really very good at finishing things. Here goes, anyway.

***

"Do you know where your mailbox is?" my supervisor asks me as I'm gathering up my things to leave.

I frown. "I don't have a mailbox, I have a mail slot in my door."

She shakes her head. "Some other teachers in your apartment building say you have a mailbox too, and it is very full," she says, in the gentle tones of someone who believes the person to whom they're speaking to be not very bright, but doesn't blame them for it.

Some other teachers are always telling my supervisor things. Some other teachers never actually say anything to me, because I'm American and might bite. Or not understand Japanese, which is a somewhat more reasonable fear, but one which could easily be allayed if they only gave me a chance.

But I don't have much time to contemplate this, because I'm too busy feeling like an idiot. "Oh. Where is it?"

My supervisor cocks her head and sucks air in through her teeth, then goes to consult with one of the Some Other Teachers. Finally she informs me that it's at the bottom of the stairs. "You had better check it," she adds. "There maybe are important things in there."

I really hope not. "Of course," I say.

***

When I reach my apartment building, the mailboxes are staring me right in the face. I can't imagine how I managed to completely miss them for the past five weeks. They don't have names or apartment numbers on them, but it's easy to tell which one is mine. It's the one that's overflowing. Transferring the stack of papers I brought from the school to one arm, I gather up this new stack of papers in the other and gingerly make my way up the stairs, sure that I'm going to drop something important without noticing it.

As far as I can tell, the stack of papers is still intact by the time I get to my kitchen table, where I dump them and begin to sort through them. Two town newsletters (July and August, I guess), a trash schedule for October through December (thoughtful of them to send it so far in advance), a postcard my sister wrote me from Denmark (the lucky so-and-so), a postcard from YahooBB politely informing me that they have no service slots available in my area at the moment (jerks), a piece of paper from my phone company that wants to be signed and sent back… nothing earth-shattering. I sweep the pile aside – and then I notice something I missed before. A small blue-and-white slip of paper, one of those "sorry we missed you" deals that you get when someone tries to deliver a package when you're not home.

It's not from the normal post office, but from a private shipping company. There's a sender's address on it, but the handwritten kanji are far too scribbly for my gaijin eyes to make sense of. There's a phone number to call to reschedule the delivery, but while my comprehension may be good, my speaking skills are shaky at best. I'd probably just end up choking and flailing and utterly failing to make myself understood. But I can't just ignore it. This package could be important. No, it must be, if it couldn't be entrusted to the regular postal service. Some kind of important form, something I'll be in serious trouble for missing. The unreadable kanji could refer to the electric company, the gas company, either of my phone companies, something relating to my car or my job… who knows? I find the attempted delivery date – it's only three days ago, so it's probably not a big deal yet. But I've got to hurry if I want to cover up my mailbox-noticing failure.

At the bottom of the slip I notice an address with hours given for on-site pickup. They're open until nine; it's six-thirty now, and the town they're in is not more than an hour away. I had hoped to spend a quiet evening at home making quiche, but this mystery package is more important than my desire to use up the spinach before it goes all slimy. I throw my laptop in the car and head to the nearest spot I can leech wireless from . The signal's weak and Google Maps takes forever to load, then fails to recognize the address I put in. I spend several more minutes reformatting the address in various ways, then staring and occasionally hitting "refresh" while the thing disconnects and reconnects and disconnects and reconnects and fails to load and generally is not nice to me. Finally it coughs up the directions (and recognizes the place by name, no less, meaning I could have put the name in directly and skipped all the futzing around), and I head out, with my laptop in the passenger seat playing navigator. It's nearly seven, but I still have plenty of time.

I drive directly into the setting sun. The incandescent orange clouds in the dusky sky make for a lovely sight, but are not so good for allowing me to see where I'm going. I wish I'd brought my sunglasses, but I don't want to go back for them now.
Perhaps as a result of my inability to see anything, I accidentally run a red light right in front of the police station, and spend the next several minutes nervously checking my rearview mirror for cops. I have been told that as a foreigner, if I break any traffic laws I will be absolutely 100% certain to be pulled over and have to pay a huge fine and probably lose my license and also my job. After about ten minutes with no sirens or flashing lights behind me, however, I am satisfied that this dire prediction was perhaps not the unvarnished truth.

I am just starting to relax when I hit a section of road that's under construction and the traffic slows to a crawl. This stretch of the road is lined with little lights, like an airplane runway. I wish I could take off right about now. If I flew over all these cars, maybe I could get there on time. I check the clock repeatedly. It's nearly 7:40 – that should be okay, right? How much farther do I have to go? I've driven through the town in question a grand total of once, on my way back from picking up my car, and I don't really remember how far it was.

When I finally do reach the outskirts of the town, I realize that I've completely forgotten the name of the road I'm supposed to turn onto when I get there, and of course my laptop's started hibernating. I need to pull off somewhere so I can mess with it without swerving all over the road and causing an accident, but I keep not noticing the parking lots until it's too late. I slow down, annoying the cars behind me, and finally manage to pull into the parking lot of some small, seedy-looking building. I check the street name – a random assortment of numbers – and spend the next five minutes or so worrying that I've already passed it.

It is with great relief that I spot the sign that tells me it's coming up in a few hundred meters. Shortly thereafter I reach the intersection, but the only option is to turn left, when my directions say I want to go right. Maybe the right turn is a little farther on, I think, and keep going – but no right turn option presents itself. Well, then, maybe it's before the left turn and I missed it, I reason. So I turn around and go back the other way for a while, but no dice. It's only after I've gone through the same intersection three or four times that I realize the left turn is in fact a highway on-ramp that will allow me to take the road in either direction.

This portion of the journey goes smoothly, and it is with a feeling of triumph that I turn onto the road the shipping facility is supposed to be on. It's a little after 8 PM, but I should be there any minute now… any minute now… any minute now…

The road gets narrower and narrower, darker and darker. There are no streetlights now, and trees on either side of the road stretch their leafy branches towards each other, blocking whatever small amount of illumination the moon might provide. There aren't even any buildings here, let alone anything that looks like what I'm looking for. Not that I'm entirely sure what that is. But I'm pretty definite on the fact that it's not a tree. Unless my packages are being delivered by magical elves, which seems unlikely – and God, why am I even thinking about such stupid things at a time like this?

The road dead-ends. I look around to make sure no one's watching and execute a U-turn. My second traffic violation of the night: I'm really living dangerously now. Just before I reach the intersection with the highway, I see the shipping facility. It's huge, well-lit, surrounded by trucks and full of packages: in other words, glaringly obvious to anyone with functioning eyes. Possibly even to blind people. It's just the stupid people (i.e. me) who have problems. Perhaps I have selective mail-related blindness. That would explain the mailbox, too. But at least I found it in the end. I pull into the parking lot (hoping that in fact I'm allowed to park there) and go inside.

I explain to the old man at the counter that I'm here to pick up a package, and give my name and address. He shuffles off to look it up, and I stand there waiting, equal parts excited and nervous at the prospect of finally finding out what it is that I've come all this way for. Although it's probably paperwork, I can't help hoping that it's something cool. A package from my family, maybe – they did say they were going to send me some of the stuff I'd left behind, which I'm looking forward to. Though that wouldn't explain the fact that the sender's address is in Japanese. Maybe that could be explained by the fact that it went through a private service. Even if it is paperwork, I remind myself, it must be important, and if I hadn't come here to pick it up it might have been held indefinitely or returned to sender, and my not filling it out would lead to all kinds of problems. I fidget anxiously, the seconds dragging on as I wait for the man to reappear.

When he finally does, he is empty-handed.

"That was your phone book," he tells me. "It was delivered yesterday."