i still believe in good

yesterday, i received a PO notice for a package. after a quick scan of the small piece of paper in my hand, I just had to groan when I saw that I had to pick it up from the Las Pinas PO yet again.

today, I had some free time so I decided to go and pick it up myself. I braced myself for the worst, while I silently repeated a string of possible pleas and rejoinders, in case the customs people asked for an exorbitant amount.

I actually got off work close to 12 noon. I wasn't sure if government agencies still honored a one-hour lunch break these days but I decided to try my luck anyways. It was 1220PM. Post office counters had signs to say they were open so I quickly went up to the 2nd floor where the customs counters are located. No hustle and bustle up there. I saw a couple of men having lunch and in a tone dripping with honey, I asked if I could pick up a parcel. One of them apologetically declared that the customs people were out for lunch, but he actually got up to check if anybody was still in the office, just in case. No luck. He then politely asked me to come back at 1 pm. I resigned myself to the fact that there was no other way around it but to wait.

As I turned to leave, another man approached me to ask if there was anything he could do. A quick check of my notice and he just re-confirmed what the other guy said earlier. I jokingly told him that he got my hopes up for nothing. 1 pm it was. Not a few seconds later, a lady, a customs officer, methinks, came to my rescue! She was willing to go into the customs office to issue my package! I was beside myself with excitement! Hehe. I quickly spotted my box sitting on top of all the others and I politely informed the lady that that was perhaps the box she was looking for.

Yep. it was mine alright. I hurriedly fished around my bag for some small bills and I was ready with my P40 in no time :) In case they asked for a higher duty tax, I was ready to argue my point that other PO offices usually only charge me P35. HEHE. A quick inspection of my PO notice and they were ready to hand me my goodie box. The lady officer conferred with the record keeper to ask if she still needed to see some identification. She did, so I quickly produced my driver's license and signed where she asked me to. I was handing her my payment when the lady officer said there was no payment needed! :o :o :o i was royally surprised but did not bother to ask why! HAHA!



OK. Studio Calico boxes usually weigh about 2 pounds, give or take a few ounces, and even with the number of add-ons I ordered this month, I didn't think my box weighed more than 4 pounds. The lady officer even went an extra mile to ask if I had someone to carry my box for me, sounding as if she was ready to ask 1 of her boys to carry my parcel for me had I asked!

Where is all this goodness coming from? No complaints here. I am just so thankful that there is still a measure of good in this world =)

side note: isn't that map of Paris simply too cool to cut up? what am i going to do???

All this for 1 paper?
yep. a few weeks ago, I emailed Scarlet and April just to ask if perhaps they had an extra MM die cut paper that was missing from one of my add-ons last month. They responded that they had no spare to send but they were willing to send me either duplicates of the patterned papers in the main kit or OA papers. I simply needed to inform them which option I wanted. I was so flabbergasted I didn't know what to say. It took me sometime to email them back to ask them to just send whatever they thought was the better option. And now here they are.

Update: these BG goodies were delivered to my doorstep today while I was away to pick the kids up from school



What have I done to deserve this? Surely, I must be in scrapper's heaven! =)