The Customs Office

My package still isn't found. I'm starting to think I should just give up and order it again under Boyfriend's name, since his packages always show up within days of him ordering.

Take today, for example. He ordered a new model NERF gun from the States last week. The model's gonna show up in Germany eventually, but it somehow takes ages for new merchandise to make its way into the country. Maybe it's a law thing, maybe it's tradition, we don't know, we're just very disappointed with it. So it got ordered from the US as soon as it came out, while it was still bright and shiny and he could make people on his foam dart gun forum go 'oooh' at it. Which they did. Profusely.

It means that he paid for the toy, for shipping and then got a confusing message that he requested pick-up of the order, which he didn't. Luckily, he didn't have to figure out where to pick it up, since the Customs Office had taken it hostage, as per usual.

In Belgium, it would happen once every two times you order it, and your order would still be delivered by the shipping company or the post office, they'd just ask you to pay the tax on it. Not so in Germany.

In Germany, there's an office in any sizeable city, and they hoard packages from all over like some kind of psychologically disturbed granny. Anything Boyfriend orders from outside the EU sooner or later gets found there. Usually sooner, though they did kidnap a load of T-shirts for over half a year once. Yeah, he didn't think it was funny, either.

So when he got a letter saying 'ZOLL' in big happy black letters on the envelope, he knew which tune was playing. He asked his dad if they had time to drive there on Monday, and when the answer was 'maybe', he planned on riding there on his bike, early in the morning. His bike without a luggage rack. To pick up a package the size of a poster done four inches thick. My concerns as to the safety of this stellar idea were waved away.

It turns out, I needn't have worried. His alarm clock conspired against him and didn't go off. No matter what you're thinking, I didn't do it. I don't know the access code of the Precious his iPhone, so I couldn't have canceled the alarm even if I'd thought of it before he told me it had happened. Anyway, when my less technologically ecumbered phone happily chirped me out of bed, he woke up, realised he had fifteen minutes before his dad would call and demand when he was coming to work, and had to hurry to get ready.

Fast forward to half past one in the afternoon.

I was sitting next to J., trying to pay attention to the trick to applying building gel, when Boyfriend came in. I'd been trying to figure it out since nine that morning, and it wasn't working. He was done with work, the lucky bugger, and was going to the customs office. Just thought he'd let us know. J. asked did I want to go, so I'd know where it was? She might have seen I was still tired from the night before (I went to bed at eleven and didn't come out until eight) and giving me a graceful way out, but I took it regardless.

The customs office wasn't far, but there's road works going on, so it took a while to get there. The office itself is boring. And they do things a lot differently than in Belgium. In Belgium, customs once charged me for re-importing my clothes to the country. I'd chucked mostly dirty laundry in a box, sat on it to tape it shut and sent it off with my fingers crossed. I got it back opened, neatly folded and in a new box. German customs officers wouldn't dream of being that intrusive, apparently. Boyfriend's box had gotten a sticker from them to show they'd looked at the package, but Boyfriend was the one who had to open it with a pair of box cutters. I think it's either so they don't get sued for damaging anything, or because they want the person who ordered it to explain why he bought something illegal.

Then they charged him not just for daring to order things not made in his home country, but also for the sum he'd paid to get it there. Because he's going to savor the wrapper or something, I guess. The only bright spot in the paying ordeal was that the office works with the exchange course from the start of the month. It was lower at the beginning of this month than it was the week before or now, so he had to pay slightly less tax than he technically had to pay. Whatever, it was still money.

While we waited for them to make up a bill for this, I read a poster on what you could and couldn't import into Germany, and that things from the EU, contrary to popular belief, could get seized. I wasn't sure if 5 ml of jojoba oil counted as 'lifestyle medicine articles', whatever that means, so we asked if they happened to have seized a bubble envelope for me. They hadn't.

We're going to bother the post office people some more tomorrow.