I arrived in July with three suitcases, one of which I paid an extra $100 to check on the plane. Of course they were full of summer things. I threw in some long-sleeved tops and boots because I knew it might get chilly starting in September. I justified my winter coat, gloves, and scarf with my best friend of 15 years in Dallas, Jonathan, because he would be visiting in October and would bring them to me in time for the weather to change.

But Jonathan’s plans changed before the weather did, and he could no longer visit. The coat, gloves, and scarf would have to be shipped. It shouldn’t be that hard to send one’s belongings via mail from one first world country to another, right? We both priced out UPS and FedEx, and to our surprise, both would be hundreds of dollars for shipping. The US Postal Service, on the other hand, had a $60 flat rate package that would arrive at my address in Rome in 3-5 days. Jonathan packed it all up, fronted me the $60 that I shall reimburse, and sent it to the address of my university here (because I do not have a doorman in my apartment building).

Why not just buy a new coat, gloves, and scarf? Two main reasons: first, because a new coat, hat, and gloves would be more than $60. It’s quite nippy on the scooter already, and my hands especially suffer as they have no protection from the wind. Also, it’s about to get very cold here, and sometimes it even snows. Plus, I am about to spend a week in Turin where it is already very cold and always snows. A cheap jacket from a street market, or even from a mall, will not do. I need my heavy, full-length, wool coat. These cost a couple of hundred dollars/euros, and when I got this coat a few years ago, it did, too. Not to mention the leather gloves and scarf.

So, it was economically preferable to spend the $60 to send the old stuff than to buy new stuff. And as I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog, money is tight. (I still cannot believe how expensive Rome is now, after seven years away.)

It was also emotionally preferable. The other really important reason I preferred to have my things shipped instead of buying new is my extreme intolerance to waste. Of course I have several different jackets for different seasons and outfits, but I certainly do not need more than one really heavy, full-length winter coat. Frankly, in my opinion, no one needs more than one, but that’s a topic another post. I loathe waste, and my blood pressure rises just thinking about having two of something of which I only need one. It’s a waste of not only precious money but precious space.

One summer I went to Germany, before we all had mobile internet, and I had not checked the weather before going. It was August, so I had brought sandals and sundresses. The temperature was in the 50s. I refused – refused – to buy an “I love Munich” sweatshirt when I already have 12 sweatshirts at home I almost never wear. I just suffered through it and thought of it as a lesson in packing learned the hard way.

I am not a masochist: one time I did buy a sweatshirt in the Philadelphia airport, overruling my own strenuous objections, because it was just intolerably cold. It’s become a wardrobe staple.

And anyway, I really like my J.Crew coat! It’s got a vintage pin on the lapel that Jonathan himself gave me when I passed the bar exam, and the sleeves are the perfect length for my long monkey arms. I wanted it for winter!

Jonathan shipped it in the nick of time before the cold winds started to sack Rome like the Visigoths. I tracked its every move on USPS.com. Dallas. Chicago. Italy. Italy. Still Italy. Then a note, “Your Item is being processed by Customs in Italy.” It stayed like that for days. Then, I began to google. I googled “shipping from US to Italy” or “package stuck in customs in Italy,” and I recoiled in horror at what I read. Apparently, it frequently happens that people having things shipped from the States have their items stopped in their tracks. The Italian customs agents either demand money to release it. They call it a “tax” so as to make it seem less like a “ransom,” which is what I think it is. If you refuse to pay it, they’ll send it back, but you’ve got to pay for the return shipping. If you refuse to pay for either, you are forfeiting your item forever.

I was upset. From what I was reading, I would have to pay a bunch more money now, no matter what. The internet told me that if I wanted the item, I’d have to pay 20% for the tax. But 20% of what? I thought. The items are years old! 20% of $10? Are THEY going to tell me what they think the value is and then demand 20% of that?

I sent a Request for Information out to my Twitter friends and one guy told me Italian Customs blocked his own, used books sent by his mother (postage paid) until he paid 35 euros to get them. He protested, but simply had no choice. I read a blog post about this by my fellow expat Tiana, but it was too late to heed her warnings. I heard other similar stories. Having no idea who to contact, I googled the Italian postal service and found a general contact number.

Dozens of unanswered calls later, I talked to a lady. This lady told me that indeed, the coat was blocked in customs because the customs agents believed the items inside were new, and if they were new, I’d have to pay a 20% tax on them. It was just as I had feared. The customs people had no reason to think the items were new. They were in a plain USPS box, with no professional logo or labeling, and the handwritten return address was Jonathan’s individual name and residence, not a store. I began to huff a little. “These are my personal effects. They have no value.” Then she told me, “YOU WILL HAVE TO PRODUCE RECEIPTS THAT SHOW WHEN THE ITEMS WERE PURCHASED AND THE VALUE.”

We are talking about a coat I’ve had since about 2007, and other items that were gifts. I protested more. She told me that the procedure is that I would receive a letter in the mail within 20 days, with forms to fill out in which I declare the value of the items. She said I must attach receipts. When I told her I obviously have no receipts, she said I’d have to attach a kind of affidavit that swears that the items are valueless. But, she said there was “no guarantee” that the customs people would accept such a declaration as true. I started crying. I said to the woman, “I cannot wait 20 days. I’m cold, and you have my coat.” She said there was nothing more she could help me with and to wait the 20 days to receive the forms in the mail.

You know when you get a piece of news that just stuns you into silence? I got off the phone with this woman in slow motion. I was just dumbstruck, quietly sobbing. I had paid to ship my own items here, to avoid buying new ones. Now I would have to buy them anyway because it would be quite cold within 20 days. And she’s telling me my declaration that the items are old and of no value may not be accepted anyway. I felt helpless; a feeling I am not used to and despise.

I will also go so far as to say that I felt like this was extortion.

Then, I googled even harder. I found a blog post in Italian from a guy who had a similar thing happen to him. He listed phone numbers to call – about 6 numbers to try. He wrote that no one will answer you at any of the numbers, so one must “insist, insist, insist.” God bless you, whoever you are, because if it weren’t for those words I would have given up after 100 tries.

And, as I have said before, I do not know how I would manage if I did not speak fluent Italian.

I literally called each number listed in that blog about 100 times. They rang and rang, and then went dead. Each. Time. Then! THEN! On the umpteenth try with one of the numbers, I heard a male voice with a Northern Italian accent say simply, “Pronto?” Just…”Hello.” No identification of who he was or anything. I said, “Is this Customs?” And he said yes.

He was instantly jovial and, I don’t know, he just had a good bedside manner. His name was Emanuele D. I also got his last name, and I won’t print it for his privacy, but his entire name should be shouted from rooftops and memorialized in marble because he is a HERO. I told him everything. I told him I was cold, I told him I really didn’t want to have to buy winter clothes when mine are here waiting for me. I told him I had no receipts. I giggled, I mentioned that I was a “studentessa” numerous times, and I verbally batted my eyelashes.

I ALSO TOLD HIM HE COULD OPEN THE PACKAGE, LOOK AT THE COAT, AND I WOULD EMAIL A PICTURE OF MYSELF FROM LAST CHRISTMAS IN THE SAME COAT WITH THE VINTAGE PIN ATTACHED TO PROVE IT WAS MINE ALREADY. This is the picture I was going to send him. (He told me it wasn’t necessary.)

Here is what he said to do: Send an email to a particular email address, declaring that the items are my personal used things and that they have no value. Attach a copy of my passport. And, copy him at his personal email address, and he would personally take care of it. He said I would get my package in a couple of days. I effused gratitude. I told him, well, you’ll have my email address in a few minutes, so let me know if you’re ever in Rome and I’ll buy you a coffee. I meant it. He said “Volentieri!” – Sure!

I did as he was told, and prayed. Three days later, I got an email from him, in English, telling me that my package would be delivered today. And it was. I have my coat. I emailed Jonathan and told him, “The Eagle has landed!” – and he was happy, too.

The year-old picture I was going to send Emanuele to prove the coat was used.

*******************************

I was telling this story to my friend Bill who has lived here for 40 years. He and I agree, as will most expats and natives here, that if you can just get to the right individual, the precise person at the right time in the right place amidst a hurricane of ineptitude, you will get superior, white glove service. That individual, if you can snare him or her in the right moment, will bend over backwards for you. Emanuele D. at the Customs place in Milan is a great example of this. My knight in shining armor in a fairy tale full of dragons and moats.

Bill told me that he has a cleaning lady here from the Dominican Republic. And every week he accompanies her to the post office to send a package back home to her family, full of goods they cannot get there. She does not have a lot of money. Bill told me that there is a flat rate for boxes under 20 kilos, but if you go over, even an ounce, it’s a ton more. When they go to the post office, the package gets weighed, and it is almost always a few ounces over. 20.3 kilos, 20.6 kilos, etc. They always get in the same line with the same postal worker, have made friends with him, and this guy always winks, looks the other way, and makes her pay only the 20 kilo price. Bill said that it’s wonderful, but they know that one day that person won’t be there and we won’t get the same favor!

I said, Bill, aside from that, how is that fair to the lady in the other line who has to pay the extra price for the extra ounce? It’s wonderful to be able to find these golden individuals who will help you in a given situation, but what if you don’t find one? What if I hadn’t found Emanuele D.? My coat might still be held hostage in the Milan airport.

In the States, there is predictability. The tow truck will come in 20 minutes, the ATM will have cash, the pharmacy will be open at lunch time. The rules, procedures, and fees for doing everything are all printed online and there are no exceptions.

I was just asked by a client in Italy to find out how to start a business in Delaware. There’s a website with step-by-step instructions and a schedule of fees. He really doesn’t even need me for much. There is nothing so black-and-white and publicly downloadable here, which means it could take you a decade to start a business, being shuffled around from building to building and line to line, or you could meet the right person who can personally push your applications through, winking at you all the way. Which is better – maybe receiving such great service? Or being guaranteed average service?

My “young man friend,” as my mother calls him, an Italian, tells this story:

I was in Miami by myself. I was waiting for a bus. The bus came and I tried to buy a ticket. I didn’t know that you needed exact change to buy a ticket on the bus. So I ran into the convenience store by the bus stop and asked the girl to change a $5 bill. She said she was not allowed to open the cash register unless I bought something. Frustrated, I said fine, and I bought a pack of gum. She gave me change. I ran back outside, but of course, the bus was gone.

When he told me this story, at this point I jumped in and said, “You think in Italy that bus driver would have waited for you??” And he said, and I thought this was great, “Of course not. But the bus driver in Italy, seeing I didn’t have correct change, would have just told me to get on anyway and don’t worry about it.”

That’s so true. Italians make exceptions to every rule, all the time, all around us. It’s so prevalent that the word “rule” has no meaning. That’s a great thing about Italy. The bus driver would have just let him on and he’d be on his way to the destination. But, maybe because I’m American or maybe because I’m a lawyer, I cannot stop thinking about the unfairness to the other people on the bus who paid for their tickets.

So, I am happy I found Emanuele D. on the other end of the phone that day, and I am happy to be snug in my coat with my vintage pin. I have learned to clearly mark everything I have shipped as “USED ITEMS” in both English and Italian, and declare a very low value (although apparently this doesn’t always work either). I have learned to call Italian phone numbers over and over until they answer. I have also learned that everything you want to do is a roll of the dice, and you never know what you’re going to get.

I have also learned that crying does not work but flirting does.

Anyone else had experience like this with receiving packages in Italy? If so I’d love to hear about it, below.