I don’t know, but I bet it’s faster than to Belize!!
November 7, 2002. Mrs. Bernse and I mail a care package to her folks that have retired to their Carribean paradise. It consisted of 2 bags of powdered skim milk, some Candy (Nibs!) and a Compactflash card for their digital camera. Total weight: About 25 or so pounds, give or take.
I package it up and go to my neighborhood postal outlet. The Post Office lady tells me I can only send it via surface due to the size of the parcel, which is OK by me as I didn’t really plan on sending it air. Price to mail: $59. Holy crap! But, what can you do. It is going to Central America after all, and its not like I’m planning on driving down there anytime soon… but it still seemed a little steep.
I ask her how long it will take and she says 6-8 weeks. Well, I suppose thats not too bad… about what I suspected. They may even get it around Christmas/New Years. We phone them and let them know to expect it end of Dec/Early January.
You just know where this is going…
It doesn’t show. They start checking the post office every few days from Christmas on. By the end of January the Post office guy in Belize says it might be lost… but it must be lost in Canada. Belize has a very modern postal system he explains. The Belize postal system wouldn’t lose it! :rolleyes: Mrs. Bernse and I resign ourselves to having it lost or stolen and we forget about our $150 package.
We get a phone call from the folks yesterday. Guess what they just received in the mail? Yep. It took a speedy 16 weeks.
Now, I’m really not terribly pissed off about this. Its not like we sent a live animal or meat through the post offce, but WTF gives? I had to go to the post office this AM for work and I related my story to the lady at the counter. She has no idea why it would take so long. “We get parcels sent to Australia and NZ almost twice as fast as that!” Geez, thanks, that makes me feel a whole lot better.
I’m wondering how hard it is to get powered skim milk in Belize… :dubious:
If you want it there quicker go with FedEx (or UPS, not sure if they are in Canada or not). Probally would be cheaper than $59, well maybe not in that funny Canadian money.
Virtually impossible. The only thing they can get is powdered whole milk. While I think that would be more appetizing for myself, they can’t drink it for some reason.
Couriers would without a doubt cost more. Besides, they live in a very small town and I don’t think it is served by anything other than the postal system so I’m SOL regardless.
The delivery time for mail sent across a national border is, apparently, completely random. For mail between Princeton, NJ and towns in southern Ontario, I’ve seen delivery times ranging from one week to three weeks, and that’s over a distance that you can drive in a day. So “six to sixteen weeks” seems about right for Canada -> Belize…
Maybe 15 years ago or so, I totaled my car. My Insurance company cut me a check and mailed it straight out. Their office was two towns over from me, at that time. Two towns. It took…Eight days for that check to travel across two towns. How’s that for postal efficiency?
To answer the topic question – 30 years, minimum. One used-car company had placed a more-or-less serious offer to purchase the lunar rover from one of the later Apollo missions. NASA was agreeable, if the buyer would just arrange for shipping. (ISTR that I read this in The Light Stuff, a collection of humorous anecdotes from NASA’s history.)
So I suppose that if/when the stupid shipper goes to the fragging Moon to pick up the bloody LRV, they can deliver bernse’s unholy package at the same time. (Invecitives added to provide appropriate BBQ flavor.)
