You know me, I don't like to complain

A few weeks ago I had a reason to send something edible across the United States. This is something my grandmothers routinely do with cookies, so I was relatively certain that this was something I could pull off. Not that my grandmothers are simple ladies—oh no. They’re the smartest people in my entire strangely organized family.

The recipient of the Timbits had recalled them fondly on more than a few occasions after having gone back deep into the jungles of Canada to help their friends and loved ones create fire and find potable water for the entire village. This no doubt also entailed an epic tale of mankind versus the wilderness, bear attacks, and an angry $diety that lives deep in the bowels of an active volcano.

For those who are curious about what the hell a Timbit is, and don’t know where they drop, you may think of them as a donut-hole as sold by inferior donut chains. They are Bind on Equip and quite a delicacy. (Yes, the drop and bind on equip jokes are extra-nerdy Warcraft shit.)

I wanted to do something Extra Nice for this person so I decided that this tasty Canadian delicacy was an appropriate route to take. But how to get my mitts on these tasty Timbits? Once again my favorite vendor in the information security arena comes to the rescue. One of the jedis they have working in their support team is, in fact, from Ontario and asked me if I had any Tim Hortons locations near me. I was surprised to learn that they were opening them up and down the Eastern seaboard. There were like three of them within five miles of my house.

This is where I sent an email to the customer service people at Tim Hortons. The next morning I hadn’t heard anything other than a confirmation. And to prove that all Americans are impatient nitwits, I called Tim Hortons to ask them if they were to ship donuts cross country to an expat, how would they do it?

I spoke with Tim Hortons crack team of customer service representatives, who found the entire conversation hysterical and worth of gathering what had to be a small audience of Tim Hortinintes. The verdict was that they were not sure how to best ship such things, because their product was far superior to everything else on the planet, and much more susceptible to becoming casualties of shipping and American postal service shenanigans.

That was not the best thing I had heard all day. My curiosity took over instead, and my epic creativity went into motion. Surely there was a way to pull this off, deliciously and perfectly.

What I wound up acquiring:

• Glad Press and Seal Wrap (Which everyone should have anyway)
• Re-usable plastic container with air-locking lid. Either made from Glad or some other company. They’re cheap and you probably have a few for taking snacks around or a sandwich into work.
• Foam padding. (Bubble Wrap will do)
• Small box.
• Box of Timbits (Original and Apple, which sounded the best)

I removed the Timbits and wrapped them in Press and Seal wrap, forming an ad-hoc plastic cavity for them to safely mingle. I put these nestlings into the plastic container, drew a picture on top of it with a Sharpie and put it into the small box with the protective foam on either side of it to keep it from bouncing around too much.

I folded up the box the Timbits came in, and put that in as well. I figure, what’s the fun of having Timbits if you can’t carry them around in a small paper box. With handles! HANDLES!

I tossed in a 3×5 card full of hopes and dreams of my Timbits reaching their destination tasty and delicious, and went to the post office. I taped up my box and dutifully filled out the sheet containing all the usual information you provide when shipping something, and opted for next-day delivery.

The US Postal Service ships things cross country, next day, cheap. CHEAP. I couldn’t believe it. It is very inexpensive.

I went to the counter and made sure I had the right papers for my Timbits. Nothing would suck worse than them being stopped at Customs entering California and questioned for hours before being deported back to Rhode Island or the Canadian hinterlands from which they came.

When the Postal Employee asked me about the package in front of me they asked me if my box contained a number of objectionable things. When they said food I said no, because they also mentioned food after a long list of things like pipe bombs and gasoline and vodka. I can’t imagine my grandmothers have been lying to Postal Employees for all these years so it is possible I can in fact tell them that I’m shipping food.

But I didn’t want to risk it. So I lied. I’ll call the Postal Service and find out what their official stance is, if this article hasn’t put me on some Postal Service Terrorist Watch-list yet.

I notified my recipient that there was an incoming delivery of something that may require signature (I forgot to ask) because it was being Next-Day’ed. They left a note on their door telling the letter carrier that the package they were holding contained a kitten and that it was very important that the box was left regardless of signature status so that it could be fed as soon as possible.

Oddly enough this didn’t result in their subsequent arrest. I was certain a SWAT team and the ASPCA were there with tiny little box-cutters trying to safely free a kitten before it died.

The Timbits made it safely and perfectly tasty. The recipient of the Timbits was very appreciative and I felt like I did a very good deed. I was quite satisfied with myself.