Sending a care package was such a daunting task to me. What if I don’t get the right box or forget a form? What if I’m standing there filling out the forms at the post office and my happy child turns into a screaming mess trying every way possible to get out of her stroller? I had no idea where to begin.
Thankfully, a friend told me about the “Mili-kit” from the USPS. You call the number and when connected to a live agent request the “Care Kit 04” and they ship boxes, customs forms, address labels, and even tape to your front door. Idiot proof. Just the way I like it.
I guess this is the part where I break the news to those of you that might not have figured it out yet, my husband and I aren’t the normal mushy type of people. In fact before he left he told me that the only thing I should worry about sending him while he was gone were the things his family couldn’t. Boot socks, green shirts, boot bands. I was going to be his long distance PX.
This took a lot of the pressure to hurry and get a box to him off my shoulders. He didn’t need anything yet and his mother was already preparing multiple boxes with goodies and such. Then I’m cleaning and spot something he left behind. I know he needs this and forgot to throw it in his bag so I have to get it to him ASAP. I fill up a box with a few odds and ends, his favorite chips, a towel because he didn’t listen to me, and throw in some baby wipes and then it’s time to learn to mail a package off.
The custom’s form looked like it was in some form of pig latin to me. Do I fill all of this out? What in the world is a EEL/PFC? How much does a towel weigh? I went to my trusty friend Google and just wound up more confused than when I started. I filled out it out the best I could and left the rest blank. I worried all night about the post office being packed and me holding everyone up because I didn’t know what I was doing. When I got there the next day, the parking lot looked abandoned.
I checked the hours on the door and made sure I hadn’t forgotten it was a holiday and then went in with my partially filled out form and box. I walked up to the counter feeling so defeated that I couldn’t figure this form out. I told the man behind the counter that I had no clue what I was doing and apologized for my lack of knowledge but that this was my first time filling one of these out. I looked up at him and he gave me the sweetest smile in the world and told me he’d help me out today and any other day I had a problem… to just come to him. He helped me with that form and a few since then and I’ve learned several tricks from him as well. His kindness to him was an everyday thing, but to me meant the world.
Where do I find this darn form? Frustrating ggrrrf
They’re at the USPS — you have to ask for them, they tend to keep them in the back. I get several at a time so I don’t have to fill them out at the post office.