Shipping Woes

Got back from a couple of days at the lake this morning. There's a voicemail on Lee's phone saying that our boxes (most everything we own) in Japan are being held in Customs due to the fact that only one of the customs sheets got there with the boxes. Now, we had to unpack the boxes to fill out these sheets since the forms require you to be very explicit with what is in each box. We would have done this in the first place, but the idiot FedEx employee who helped us when we said "We're shipping things to Japan" didn't actually help us but gave us the wrong number of boxes and charged us for the other two anyway while not listening to what we said, so didn't give us the forms in the first place. This same guy was very helpful during the shipping of the boxes, so we figured that he was just having a bad day the first time or something. We're using the Great Rates line through FedEx so we get 74% off of the normal shipping costs by shipping it on a certain day of the week when everything else is slow. It's new, so we were having problems shipping it out and it took over 2 hours at the store to get it done. We also haven't actually gotten charged for the shipping yet, but at least the boxes got to Japan.

We called FedEx and they gave us the number of the local shipping center to call. No one has our paperwork. Well, one form made it through. Their advice is to forge the other 14, even though the form is legally binding and all and we could technically go to jail if we lie on it. I guess we were supposed to get a copy of all of these, but the employee didn't give us any. We filled out completely 15 of these sheets, which took many, many hours, and apparently, only the one got shipped. They faxed us a copy of the one that got shipped so we can better forge the rest, and we've found that some information on it was changed after we turned it in, and we're thinking the employee changed the numbers and threw the rest away. Lee's trying to call Japan to let them know what the problem is so that instead of forging these rather important pages, they know that FedEx screwed us over and forged some information after we signed the declaration. We're hoping they don't send us back all the packages, because that would be very painful.

Also I was supposed to get yarn for a test knit today and it didn't come in. Right about now, I hate all forms of shipping. I did finish Peasantry and am close to finishing a couple other things, so that I can start others, but did not take photographs on the lake of both Peasantry and the Lace Rib Raglan like I planned. Maybe I'll take them up to Maine tomorrow and take pictures then. Hopefully we get this shipping stuff sorted out before we go and also I hope that my yarn comes in and the mail gets here before we leave. Six hours of car ride would at least get the first sock mostly done, and I'd hate to lose that especially since this particular knit is on a rather tight deadline.

Also also, I have been so very upset that I totally forgot that today's Friday and the next Secret of the Stole hint is out. At least I'll have that to keep me busy if I don't get the sock yarn. Like I actually need something else to keep me busy - my list of WIPs isn't enough?