freedom package

I've had a bum week. For the last two mornings the cleaning lady has opened my door to a half-sleeping, certainly drooling specter of a person swaddled in a duvet and more blankets than the weather calls for. Upon emptying my bin she's regarded with a professionally blank face a half-empty tub of Phish food, a clean, cylindrical McVities chocolate digestives wrapper torn savagely in two, several Cadbury wrappers, a disposable plate stuck all over with the vestiges of basmati rice and soy sauce. Even halfway across the globe, my friends and I are managing to PMS at the same time, but the possibilities of sweets and chocolates to soothe hormonal aches and mild fevers in England are largely expanded from the already sizable array at home. Here Cadbury bars boast the £1 sign proudly and in yellow, so that when you compare that price to your Egg Mayonnaise and Cress sandwich at £1.89, it only seems logical to pick up one--for today, and another--for tonight.

Here are instructions on being me on a bum week: 

1. wake up each day at noon or later
2. sit in bed listening to audio books for five hours
3. eat a lot of chocolate and cookies while you're doing it
4. repeat

I'm starting to write in the voice of the man who narrates Bryson's audio books, which has leant my writing nothing but the experience of listening to that voice, American, probably New England-ish, slightly raspy, full of alluring, comedic charm and precision of pronunciation. But I'm not just writing to tell you that I've been slave to hormonal flux for a week now, nor that the weather's been gloomy so I've felt justified in staying inside most days except for a brief jaunt across the lawn and back to see some sun and get some circulation. I'm not just telling you that I'm now narrating my own writing in the voice of Ron McClarty as heard in Notes from a Small Island, although I think that's rather an accomplishment and an interesting bit of information.

I'm really writing because today, waking up near to noon, I realized that something I'd been recently informed--nay, two things!--were simply contrary to reason. This week I have been daunted by the task of figuring out the least painful way in which to part with the large sum of cash that makes up my accommodation fees. Yesterday, I recorded a half-hour slot of time in my never-used, often-useful pocket calendar as time in which I was to go visit the accommodation office about which methods to use to transfer my American dollars to their British institution. Before setting out into the mild rain and mist, I'd done my research online and was only seeking to confirm this information, plus ask about fees for bank-to-bank transfers, in person. Well, I made it to the accommodation office, which was bustling with students, was well-lit, and uncomfortably warm. I peeled off my jacket and waited to be seen.

“My questions,” I said, once a small woman had called me over to her desk, “are few and easy. My burden is light and my yoke shall give rest to the weary--”

I didn't really say this. I did explain that I'd done research online and just wanted to ask a couple, hopefully simple questions. She nodded as though she understood and was going to give me correct information. I asked her: “is it true that I can just transfer money from my bank account to the school's bank account to pay for my accommodation?”

This was a trick question. The answer is yes and it says so clearly online. But I could tell by the way this woman was watching me that I wasn't going to receive the confirmation that I wanted, or it wasn't going to be easy.

“Is your bank account--international?” she asked, being polite, on the slim chance that I am actually Canadian. 

“Yes, it's American,” I told her.

“Well, as far as bank transfers, we can only transfer from UK banks to ours. This service doesn't charge fees. However...” And she trailed off, explaining something about international debit cards and how you can use those and they don't charge fees either. After the extreme disappointment upon learning that all the information online is actually not directed to international students at all, the debit card seemed a grand idea. 

“I have an international debit card,” I said, and showed it to her. I'm unsure of whether or not she thought I wanted congratulations. “I'll use that, but I'll have to transfer funds onto it...” and I trailed off, too, thanking her warmly and walking out into the slight rain and cold, back to my room, back to my pyjamas and digestives.

It wasn't until this morning when I woke up that it occurred to me that this information was probably incorrect. Why would they link me, an international student, to a page with defunct information? I needed to ask someone else. So I did some other research online and found that the accommodation office isn't even in charge of collecting accommodation fees. I really should have gone to the office of "Finance Enquiry" at the Registry. I felt very stupid and very pleased at the same time--stupid for not having found out this information sooner and pleased that a U.S. to UK bank transfer was more than likely to be a concrete possibility. (Which should not be confused with discrete probability.)

My main problem now was that today's weather on my weather forecast widget in Dashboard only shows up as a smoke-like smudge across the calendar--wind. At home, I rejoice for rain, enjoy that atmosphere, I am even glad for mild coastal breeze and sunshine with scattering of clouds--actually, those are the best days California has to offer--but I have always, unfailingly complained of wind. And here--I am enchanted though mildly annoyed by rain and drizzle, brief spats of pouring rain fail to faze me, and even arctic temperature plunges when the sun falls fail to elicit whinges to the degree that wind at home ever has. And the wind at home is warm. It makes your hair stick to your face and other crevices you scarcely knew were wedged into your neck or behind your ear. All hope for lipstick is lost, one's eyebrows and eyelashes become dangerous thickets, the body builds up unseemly muscle simply attempting to walk in the direction of one's own choosing. Trees fall over. Leaves spawn as though reproduction is going out of style. Car alarms ring in the early morning hours, and every other hour, especially when you're trying to watch TV or sleep or talk to someone. Dogs bark and howl, ducks quack, cows low, coyotes probably stay underground, or cower under copses on brown dusty hills, because I don't have memories of their howls on windy days.

Wind here is different. It isn't warm--instead it's cold and disregards the fact that you've got any layers on at all, cutting to skin and probably to bone. Car alarms don't go off because I don't hear them on university grounds. The reeds around the university broad go nearly horizontal. Lipstick and eyelashes are still unsafe. But most of all, the wind makes it hard to breathe. You develop a certain way of tilting your head so that the peak of your nose receives the worst of it and your nostrils are still able to draw a normal amount of air and your lungs are safe from overinflation. If you drop out of cadence or take an irregularly long or short draw, you're doomed until a reprieve from the icy gales and you can take in your momentary oxygen. If the wind's blowing from behind, make sure you're wearing a thick jacket or coat and don't let boys walk behind you, either. If it's blowing from the front or the sides, you should wear sunglasses so you can open your eyes, shield them from wind or hair. And you might as well give up on your fringe for the day, it's sticking up straight in the air.

I realized, sitting up in bed, that the sounds I had previously mistaken for thunder were actually wind ripping through the tall concrete buildings and, more importantly, through the crack I leave open on my window. And I wanted to get down to it--can I transfer from my U.S. bank account or can't I? But the specter of the wind and the howl of it through the campus were not, what one might call, alluring. 

There were other reasons to get up, though. First, I hadn't checked my pigeonhole for mail in a few days, and second, my dad had told me that my package had been delivered but I still hadn't received an email from the guy who said he emailed people when they got in packages. So I realized that I'd been, again, misinformed! He doesn't email you! What a liar! 

The thought of tea-cozy-crocheting material and a usb mouse in a package from home was enough to get me out of bed, into a shower and a semi-decent state. It would all be mussed by the wind, at any rate. So I pulled on my books caked with the dried mud and grass of the University of Sussex countryside, a shirt and a jumper, and carried a jacket with me over my arm, as the temperature wasn't to be too cold and the sun was out, unobscured by clouds or mist or trees. You can feel the wind! But you cannot see the wind...

I made my way hesitantly and with moderate difficulty to the registrar, where I queue'd for about three minutes and found out that I can transfer from a U.S. bank without a problem, plus, they'll convert it to pounds without me having to do it, in about one minute. I walked out of the Registry with a paper in hand with the bank's information and feeling triumphant. 

My next job would be slightly more confusing, because how was I supposed to convince someone I had a package in and hadn't had an email when he clearly believed very earnestly that he emailed people when their packages came? I walked with determination down to the ground floor and straight up to the “hole in the wall” where this Gary figure sat hunched over some writing in front of a computer monitor. I stood quietly and meekly. He looked up and said, “oh, hi!” when he realized I'd been waiting for a few moments and that his comportment was not up to the English standard of utmost politeness. Not that I cared. 

I began timorously--“I've talked to you before...and I know you said you send out emails when there's supposed to be a package in, but I know there's a package for me--”

“Did you get my email?” he asked, looking hopeful that this would, in fact, be easier than it was to be.

“Well--no, that's the thing, but my parents--well, the tracking on the package said it had arrived, but I didn't get an email from you...”

By now he is clearly processing what I've said very closely since it's entirely contrary to his world view. 

“Well,” he said, and then, his face clearing, “well, what's your name? I can check to see if something came in...”

I told him. “Lily ____.”

After a moment of muttering that there's nothing here for a Lily ____, his finger pauses in its scan of a chart upon a “David _____.” The abbreviation for my enrolled school--AMS--is in the column next to it. I nearly laugh out loud. 

“There's one for--” and he reads off the name. I hesitate--there could be another student enrolled in American Studies with my last name and my dad's first name, and I mention this falteringly, but I think Gary is stunned by the vague possibility that my name is David and I just wasn't telling.

“That's...my dad....” I say after a moment.

We stare at each other for a second, he in utter bewilderment and me with an idea of what's happened that I already thoroughly understand. My dad's name was on the package as the sender, and whoever took down the name of the recipient accidentally put down his name as mine, because we both have the same last name and it's a relatively easy mistake to make if you are a blockhead. 

“Would he have sent you something in his name?” he asks me after a moment of strenuous mental activity.

“Well--um--I don't think so, but it could be that his name was listed as the sender and--”

but he asks if I want him to check anyway since I know there should be a package for me, so I ask him to yes, please, check, and he pulls up one for Lily _____, saying that it “just came in, actually.” I look around on it for a part that says my dad's name and it's there, and I show it to Gary, who still asks if I want him to "pull up" the thing that came for David, convinced that they're two different packages.

“Sure,” I say, and then because he's looking so determinedly I'm almost fooled into thinking there's another package there--for my dad. 

“Well, there's nothing here, so...” and he noncommittally repeats something that sounds an awful lot like what I've already explained to him. “So, will you just sign here for him?” he asks, thrusting the chart gently in my direction, and I take it up, trying not to grin at the thought that he’s still talking as though the package actually did come for a “David” and that there wasn’t just some mistake. I thank him several times and exit as quickly as I can with my rightful boon.

Well, that explains the emails, I think, pattering down the stairs.

My friends Megan and Kelsey and Angela and I all went shopping during the summer on a certain occasion, and found ourselves in a store that stocked several things plastered with the American flag or picturesque eagles who stare out into the poetic middle distance, looking fierce and free. Megan and I tried on denim shorts on which one of the legs was covered with a screen print of the star-spangled banner. At some point in the conversation as to how pale I really was and “if they were just a different shade of blue...” we'd consider really buying them, Megan called them “freedom shorts,” and immediately, like some kind of forest fire, the term “freedom ____” for any item with anything loosely American about it caught on. We'd see a shirt with our flag on it--”freedom shirt!”--and once I saw a tie in the pattern of the flag and impulsively shouted “freedom tie!” whilst with my family at some modest venue. I even got my sister to start saying it, as when we'd go to the mall we'd point out “freedom socks,” “freedom backpack,” “freedom hats,” “freedom lipstick,” and everything else. 

So when I got my package today--liberated it, say, from a cruel and lonely fate, forever waiting for a David ____ who lives in California and was never the intended recipient to answer his non-existent email by calling on it--and after I'd carried it the quarter of a mile up and down stairs and over slippery surfaces, plopped it on the bed and shed my jumper as it is unusually hot on the upper floor of this house when the sun's shining on the drapes, and then rolled it onto the floor to open it up and saw the words “UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE” underneath the declarations of “royal mail” and other British things, the phrase floated up into my conscious mind without effort: “freedom package.”

And its contents have liberated me from many things: the dense, bored afternoons which shall now be filled with crocheting tea-cozies; the lack of good peanut butter with a can of good, American Jif; the consequential lack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups with two packages of these; the iron reign of Colman's mustard with a bottle of beautiful, mild, French's Yellow; the blandness of vegetarian dining options with a bottle of McCormick's fake “Bac'n Pieces”; and the terror of my errant trackpad with a hefty usb mouse, complete with the world's smallest scrolling device.

I am already planning to go down to the kitchen to stow away my precious American goods in the larder; I am sprawling regally as I sprint smoothly over the contents of this screen with my usb mouse; and I am looking forward to an afternoon of audiobooks and the double-vision I associate only with the joy of crocheting. Thanks, parents! And Molly, for your letter! Perhaps today I will redeem myself from the veggie-sausage-burning wretch that I became merely last night as I filled the kitchen with the noxious fumes of yellow smoke and scattered bits of carbonized soy proteins.