Today I had the freaking fuku

If you don't know what the fuku is, you should read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It's explained in there. Basically, to sum it up, the fuku is a super evil bad luck which follows you and fucks you over and over and over until you can't stand it any more. And not in a good way.

Let me give the back story: I have trouble finding clothes that fit my, how shall we say, wide load size (getting slightly less wide and more simply over sized load). I've looked here in Spain and my choices are limited to old lady polyester or my increasingly stained and falling apart wardrobe I brought to Spain with me. I am actually down two shirts since they became stained so badly while cooking that I could no longer wear them out of the house. So I broke down and ordered some clothes online in the US.

These I had delivered to my mom who kindly agreed to ship them to me in Spain. We had to do it this way because 1 my mother-in-law was bringing heaps of things with her already and 2 they would not be delivered before she left for Madrid.

Yesterday in my post box I received a slip (dated 2/28/11 oddly enough) saying my package had arrived! Just in time! I was having lunch with friends today! I'd get to wear new clothes. Be a new gal! Yeah!

But why hadn't he rung? I'd been home that day. And at 1:00pm too. Odd. I shrugged it off. But I did not see it for what it was. The fuku was encroaching.

Ricardo had an errand to run today. A colleague of his had an image that needed to be picked up in person from a museum here in Madrid. Why did it need to be picked up? Why couldn't it be mailed to him? Good question! Sadly, since this is Spain, no answer can be given. What he was given was a specific set of instructions about how to pick up the image in person. Since he was going to need to go to the post office to mail the image and since I needed to go to the post office to pick up my package and since I did not need to cook today thanks to the generosity of friends, I decided to go with him on his errand and he would come with me on mine. I tucked the package slip in my pocket, checked I had our passports and away we went.

We took the train to Tribunal (see? the signs are all around and yet I am too blind to notice!). There we looked for an unmarked building which had no door one could get into. We asked a police officer who pointed us to the boarded up museum and said that there might be an office or something in the back on another street (although our instructions clearly indicated 78 Fuencarral). There was indeed an office and another security guard. We showed our passports, had the numbers written down, (the Spanish love passports and DNIs) took the elevator up to the 1st floor and picked up an envelope with a CD in it.

Since it was a nice morning we decided to walk from the museum to the Palace of Mail. Yes. That's right. The Palace of Mail. It's not really the Palace of Mail any more. It's City Hall. But there's still a post office in it. Our post office. And that was where we had to go. Along the way we stopped and picked up a padded envelope to mail the CD which could not be mailed by the museum.

We had a lovely walk, about 40 minutes or so and arrived at the Palace of Mail. There we pressed the button and got our number to wait our turn (like a deli, but much much more irritating). When we got to the desk I reached into my pocket. The slip was gone. We explained it was gone. The guy behind the counter thundered at us: "How can you expect to get your package without your ticket (they use the word ticket here oddly)?! There are thousands of packages here! It's like looking for a needle in a haystack!"

Ricardo asked if they could just re-deliver it to us? "No! Of course no!" So I was emotional now. So I asked him, "Why? Why can't you" I thought he might turn purple at this point. "We have rules here! This is a government office! You can't ask us to change the rules because you lost your ticket!!!! You have to find the ticket or you cannot get the package. No one can get a package without a ticket in Spain. Where do you think you are?!"

And the thing is, after 7 months here. I've been trained. This behavior is so par for the course. His response so normal that what did I do? What did Ricardo do?

I went out and began to trace my steps. I walked all the way around the Palace of Mail. Ricardo went back to the paper store where we got the envelope. I went back to the apartment in case I left it there. I took the train back to Tribunal and Ricardo walked back towards the museum. I went to the museum. Along the way we looked at every scrap of paper on the ground between the palace of mail and Chueca.

And it never occurred to us that the guy was just a big fat douche.

Once I'd run out into the middle of traffic and nearly been hit by a car, Ricardo decided it was time to go all Ecuadorian on them. We'd been looking for a fucking piece of paper for an hour all over Madrid on a windy day and across large roads. This was crazy. We were headed back to beg.

Which we did. Tears helped. We got a new guy and explained the situation. His response? "Oh, that's not a problem. What's the name and address?" We gave it to him. He looked in the drawers but couldn't find it. Looked in the closet, not there. Asked about the date and said there was nothing for our neighborhood which was a "carta" (envelope but big) for that day. But not to worry, there were copies of all this at the other office. We could go there and they'd give us the number and then they could get it to us.

Another office?

What other office?

On Doctor Velasco 14. Or as it turns out 4 but really, who needs a correct address. From the mail service.

By then it was 11:50. We'd been at this since 9 am. Ricardo had an appointment. I smelled so bad I thought it might permanently ruin my coat. I went home to shower and we agreed to meet at the good doctor's and try to set this right. Today.

After my shower, I was cleaning my glasses and the lens popped out of my good pair.

I decided to take a cab. After I'd put on my hand of fatima. No more fucking around with this fuku.

Met up with Ricardo at the office. Oddly enough it was for the association of retired postal workers. How do these people manage to retire? How do they not get lynched in this country? I ask you?

We went in and saw our good for nothing delivery guy Enrique who totally avoided me (because the rat bastard knew I was home that day and he never fucking buzzes me. He always leaves the slips and never brings the packages. Lazy fuck. But he does get his).

Inexplicably, someone is trying to do a handstand.

Of course, this *is* a government agency. We have rules here!

We ask them to look up our package, which a very round by elfsized woman agrees to do. We tell them what was on the slip. They look on the 28th. It's not there. They try 27-22. Nope. We try 1st, 2nd. Nothing. WTF? I say to the woman, "Isn't that my mail carrier?" It is! She calls him over.

Did you deliver a package to these people, she asks?

I think so, he says.

When was that?

A few days ago.

What kind of package?

Ordinario (regular).

Well, why did it say carta on it then? (which implies that it was certified and he'd mislabeled it.)

He didn't have a reason. Also it came out that he never had had the package with him, nor had he rung me that day. Nor had the slip been put in the box until yesterday. Enrique receives some pwning by a superviser while the red haired, rotund elf woman finds our slip effortlessly in the ordinary lists. She gets out a ticket, writes my name on it, the date, and a made up delivery time. We thank her profusely and leave.

As we depart I notice there's no number for the package which was why we couldn't have it in the first place. We go back in to ask her.

"Oh you don't need one for an ordinary package."

We just looked at each other at that point.

We hopped in a cab and went back to the Palace of Mail. I got our number and we waited our turn. Silently, I handed the third person of the day our slip and my passport. He went around the corner and returned with the package.

"Weren't you here earlier today?"

"Yes we were."

"Well, you see you had to have the section number or we couldn't get it."

"Right we said. Of course. We totally understand. Thank you for everything."

The section number is, of course, our zip code. Which we'd given them before. There was not a thing on that paper that we had not given them at any of the other times we'd been there that day, except, a piece of paper with the official logo on it which looks like this:

We walked out of there and began to laugh so hard I thought I might pee myself on the street. We got a cab back to the apartment, I opened the package (the fuku continued unabated since the bag with the emerald green beaded top held no such thing. But now I have a nice cashmere turtleneck sweater which I don't need right now, but I will need next year).

We had a lovely lunch with friends. And in the end, I wore a new shirt!