Speeding Its Way Across The Globe Like Ryan Gosling, Just In Time For Halloween

D called me a couple of weeks ago to ask for my assistance in ordering a vital part his Halloween costume from an eBay seller. His college, like most others, has lots of fun activities going on for the holiday and he’s cared more about his costume in the last couple of years than he has since he was about eleven years old.

“Sure,” I said, “What are you going to be this year?”

“The Driver from the (Ryan Gosling) movie ‘Drive’.”

I haven’t yet seen the movie so I had to go off of his excitement–and my sister’s enthusiastic endorsement of his idea–as I opened up my laptop to check out the special jacket he wanted.

Photo: 3guys1movie.com

After clarifying that I would be reimbursed, I logged in on eBay and placed the order for him. The seller was international so I mentioned to D that if anything went awry he may not have his jacket in time, and we settled in to wait. I told him that I would personally deliver the jacket to him along with his brother’s leather driving gloves.

The Paypal payment took a couple of days to complete and a couple of days after that I decided to check the jacket’s sale page to remind myself how long shipping was supposed to take from England. To my surprise, there was a note at the top of the page saying the seller would be unavailable starting at midnight on October 17 (coincidentally the day my payment went through) and wouldn’t be shipping anything until October 28th.

Oy.

I messaged D with Plan B: I would make the drive to see him at school and take him to the outlet mall to see if we could assemble another costume for him. I sent the seller a note, figuring he wouldn’t see it until his return, saying that he didn’t need to bother sending the jacket because it would never get here in two days. To my surprise, he emailed me back immediately that he had just shipped it.

I told D that the jacket may arrive here after all, but I would still be up to see him and figure out that Plan B, and we made a date for today.

Then, the tracking information finally came through and I discovered that the jacket was shipped from Pakistan (not England). The day before yesterday.

Oh boy.

Plan B was going to come in handy after all.

Yesterday morning I checked the tracking and found that the jacket had made a stop in the United Arab Emirates which, in the grand scheme of the globe isn’t all that far from Pakistan. Sigh. I really didn’t want to have to deal with processing a return on this jacket (even though the seller told me that he would refund us if it arrived too late). The tracking information just wasn’t encouraging.

But wait!

Last night I checked the tracking again and discovered that the jacket had made its way all the way to Leipzig, Germany!*

The adventures of this jacket suddenly became almost as exciting as a Ryan Gosling movie. Almost.

I messaged D: “Your jacket just left Leipzig, Germany! I am CRACKING UP at this!”

Figuring the jacket *just might* squeak in at the last minute, I told D that I was still planning on driving to see him today: frankly it’s been six weeks since I’ve seen him and I was looking forward to spending some time with him, regardless of the Halloween situation.

This morning, checking the tracking information was the first thing I did after I brushed my teeth (I don’t drink coffee so there was no delay in the kitchen). I nearly shrieked when I read that the jacket had been processed in Cincinnati overnight.

I told Jim that it’s likely that he and I will be driving north this weekend to deliver that jacket, but in the meantime I was going to go today and enjoy lunch with our son.

I’m leaving the house in two hours and suddenly have high hopes. You see, I just found out the jacket is on the local delivery truck.

What a nail biter. I’ve really got to rent that movie.

*Lucky. I want to go to there.