Our New Mattress

So, remember that earlier post about the tale of two mattresses? Well, here's part two to that story.

For labor day weekend I'm heading back to the DC area because my Best Man is getting married, and my parents have our mattress sitting in the house ready for me to pick it up. Cara and I have done some research and assume that since the mattress is too big for APO/FPO shipment, that the only route is air cargo shipment. My dad mentions that its too big for a small car, so I change the rental car I have already reserved from and Mid-Size to an SUV.

So I get home, and place the mattress in the back of the SUV and drive from Bowie, MD to Fairfax, VA for Ty's wedding festivities. Fairfax is pretty close to Dulles so I figure I'll have no problem shipping it by air cargo. Boy was I wrong. As it turns out, unless you are a company, Delta or Korean Air Lines doesn't want to talk to me. I have to talk to a freight forwarding company, like FedEx. Great.

So, after all the wedding festivities are all over, I head back to Bowie with the mattress in back of my car. I do some more research on FedEx.com and after creating a fedex.com account, I find out that my package is too light to be shipped by freight forwarding. Then it hits me... I could have had FedEx come and pick the mattress up from my parents house as soon as they received it. I could've had our mattress over a month ago! Oh well, water under the bridge. So dad and I take the mattress to FedEx Annapolis and ship it. Dad mentions that the clerk wasn't the brightest, but I thought everything was cool. That was labor day, and I flew back to Korea the morning of the 4th.

Cara receives a message from FedEx Annapolis that says I forgot to sign the waybill and it can't go out. Great... But, thank the lord, they send it anyway. After about a week has passed, we haven't heard anything, and wondering whats happening to our mattress. I realize that I've tossed my tracking number, and try calling FedEx Annapolis and corporate, but nothing. So I'm completely lost and worried about the location of the mattress.

Well, FedEx calls us and informs us that our mattress is stuck at customs, so she gives them my cell number and FedEx calls me that afternoon. They ask how much it was worth, whether it was brand new or whatnot, and after all was said and done, I was on the hook for a 20% tax! Whoa! So I mention that I'm under SOFA (status of forces agreement), and that changes everything. No import taxes!!! :-D. It gets released through customs and the very next day, we have our mattress!

So we've been sleeping on our new mattress for a while now, but we finally transfered the video of us opening it from the camera to the computer. So, here it is: The "jack-in-the-box" mattress.