Yesterday I took the first load of my boxes (TV, PC, server, monitor) to UPS to ship them to New York (so I wouldn’t overload their mailroom receiving them all at once). After checking the UPS website for the location, I discovered my local office is only open from 5-5:30pm M-F. I borrowed a friend’s truck, went there right at 5pm, and got in line behind the two people already there. Already hot and dehydrated from packing, I had to stand outside of the minuscule receiving area dripping sweat in the last of the afternoon sun.

The crotchety old man at the front of the line was trying to return something he’d ordered through the mail and didn’t seem to understand the UPS guy’s explanation that he should have contacted the company and had them send him a return shipping label. The man argued with the UPS guy for approximately 23 minutes as a line of customers formed behind me. Finally he left and then the other guy in front of me took like only 30 seconds to ship his one box. When he threw down a $20, I noticed for the first time that there was no credit card machine next to the cash register. I asked and discovered they only took cash or check (neither of which I had brought). With only 5 minutes for the office to remain open, I had to load all my boxes back into my friend’s truck. If it hadn’t been for the crotchety old man, I could have driven home real quick and gotten my checkbook.

The UPS guy suggested I try the HyVee or Walmart to see if I could ship the boxes from their UPS pickup locations. I hit HyVee first and discovered they only had a tiny scale, which wouldn’t accommodate any of my boxes. Ready to burst out into tears, I tried Walmart and found that their scale could hold up to 75 pounds. Fortunately, my TV (the heaviest of the boxes) topped out at 72 pounds. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like it’s significantly more expensive to ship from the Walmart (and it’s open all day), so I’ll most likely take rest of my boxes there today and tomorrow.