A Shipping Tale of Fail

Hey everyone! First of all, meet my new friend, Pricy the Terrifically Expensive Unicorn:

Well, how to start this tale of woe, which shall explain how this poor innocent creature came to earn her terrible name? Alas, it begins in June, back when every week was grinding by at a horrible pace as I approached the date of my first ever trip outside of Canada, when I first recalled that it was cheaper to ship a Windstone inside the states. With my best buddy Anna’s blessing, I ordered Pricy, a foop that came to be named Cedar and a kitsune whose current title is Soon-to-be-‘Fox-of-Many-Colours’-Whenever-I-Get-Around-To-It-Which-Might-Not-Be-Soon-But-Probably-Should-Be. Sigh. What a long name, but at least it promises great things right?

Pricy and her bros. (Plus Lone Star Fuzzy! <3)

Pricy and her friends were thus sent to Anna's house in the wonderful state of Texas (love that place - definitely going back next year,) where they waited for me to arrive. After an exhausting ordeal involving two layovers, three planes (one of which was ironically freezing as it sped over Arizona,) and two empowering tablets of tranquilizer which made the entire journey possible because airplanes give me panic attacks, I arrived. Now, first of all, my plan to bring these Windstones home to Canada seemed sound, yeah? I was going to bring all three PYOs back with me in my carry on and save on the horrible shipping fees which USPS charges when sending stuff to Canada. I was like "Yes! I'm going to get all these Windstones and NOT have to pay $80 CAD for this unicorn!" (Well, right now with shipping a PYO unicorn to my house comes out to approximately $83 CAD.) I felt incredibly brilliant. The shipping for the package to Texas was only about $20, which was a sweet deal.

Then I realized that my carryon wouldn't fit Pricy. 🙁

I have no idea why I didn't think of this. I think because I'd spent the last year staring at my actual suitcase, which is much larger and I forgot my firm decision to just bring a carryon because of my three gruelling flights (hours in the air totalled as much as a flight to Europe from some Eastern points in North America at over seven hours.) I looked at Pricy's internal box and cried inside.

So I took my foop and my fox and left Pricy behind with a American fifty to see her shipped home, which I thought would be more than enough considering that it only costs me $20 CAD to ship stuff to Anna. Two months later, Pricy finally arrived a couple of days ago and her final price tag is just under $160 CAD and I had to send Anna another $13 USD to do it. (I could have not bothered, because Anna said don't worry about it, but why should she pay for my being dumb? Besides, she's in university and needs every penny!) In the end, I could have saved approximately $75 by just shipping Pricy the normal way, direct from Windstone to my house.

My consolation prizes are that I learned something (this is a mistake I won't repeat) and the lone star fuzzies which Susie sent, which were so ridiculously thoughtful! Anna and I both treasure them! <3 And hey, Pricy will hopefully earn herself a new name soon after she gets a paint job and becomes my mom's unicorn. (Also, Pricy arrived in one piece despite my changing out half of her packing peanuts for boxes of fancy American oreos which Anna gave me, so that's a blessing too. Actually the oreos made great packing material haha! Only one box died and it was a flavour that we have here in Canada anyway, so no big loss.)

But will I ever tell my mother that her unicorn cost me $160?

NOPE! 😉

And next time, I'm just ordering straight to here in Canada - or, y'know, getting a flight itinerary with one less connection and bringing proper luggage.

And thus concludes my extremely expensive little adventure with a PYO unicorn. I hope y'all enjoyed! 😀