Suzy Says

Cast your minds back. Way, way back. Back to last December. That’s when I was deciding what to do about the 250 year old grandfather clock I had inherited from my father. In the end, I decided not to restore the lost height. Partly because the cost would have been prohibitive (and it already cost me, all told, close to $4,000 to have it restored, appraised, insured, and shipped), but mostly because I was ultimately more interested in preserving it the way my father and grandmother had known it than in historical accuracy. After all, I’m not a stately home or a museum, though my niece, who will inherit it from me along with all the other good stuff like my jewelry, is planning to buy herself a multi-storey house with a floor dedicated to the Suzy Collection. And in a manner after my own heart she intends to have a full-time staff to take care of it. She really is the daughter I never had.

The ancient timekeeper was shipped to me on a brand-new jet, something completely unthinkable when it was first made. In those days, it would have had to be shipped around the dangerous Horn, and besides, there wasn’t much San Francisco in 1750. Even Mission Dolores wasn’t built until 1776 (the first Mass was celebrated there five days before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and it remains the oldest building in San Francisco – Registered Landmark Number One). The clock arrived in South San Francisco a month ago, but I still don’t have it yet. I bet I would have gotten it faster by horse and cart in 1750 than by truck in the 21st century.

The saga of not getting the clock is positively epic. I’ll try to make it short. Involved in the tale are the Clock Repair Guy; English Shipping Firm; US Shipping Firm (they received the clock on its arrival) and US Delivery Firm.

1. US Shipping Firm tells me I owe them $952 in Customs, duties, local taxes, etc. I don’t , because the clock is a family piece and essentially my property – they were charging me Customs based on the (astronomical) value of the clock. So they had to go back to Customs and get the charges changed, etc. Imagine the bureaucracy. It was something like the part in “Casablanca” where the voiceover says, “And wait…and wait…and wait”.

   USF also claimed to be completely unaware that the clock was an antique or anything, despite the paperwork included in the shipment by Clock Repair Guy, which explains why USF kept calling me with did questions like whether the clock runs on batteries.

   And PS: the $4,000 already paid included all charges on both sides of the Atlantic. Reconfirmed this with CRG, who faxed me all the relevant documents. If I were a nicer kind of girl, I probably would have just paid yet another thousand dollars. Being a pain in the ass finally paid off after all these years.

2. US Delivery Firm calls to arrange delivery of the clock. They can barely speak English. They claim they were unaware that there were stairs and no elevator at our house, once again despite the paperwork included by CRG. They also say they can’t carry the clock up the stairs anyway because it weighs 220 pounds. I explain to them that CRG was able to carry it out of my stepmother’s house and put it into his ordinary car by himself, so it must be the crate that is so heavy. Suggest they remove crate. They agree to do it for $35. Whatever. It’s already cost me a small-size fortune and also will save me a trip to the dump to get rid of the crate.

3. At this point, they tell me there has been some damage to the clock and want me to come down there and look at it. I have no way of getting there and they seem to be unable to explain exactly what the damage is. Go back to English-speaking USF and ask them about it. Turns out that the crate was equipped with a sort of dye pack which is activated when the crate is damaged. The dye pack had been activated and when USF received the crate off the plane, they got the airline to sign a letter saying they were responsible for the damage. Yet no-one thought it noteworthy enough to mention to me.

4. I tell the delivery firm to just deliver it to me the way it is. I take an afternoon off while Margaret is visiting to wait for the clock to arrive between 12 and 2. They don’t show up. They don’t call. At 4:00, I call them and they say they have left me messages at my office saying they can’t deliver it without a letter from me releasing them from any liabilityfor damaging the clock. I explain that I have been at home waiting for them to deliver the clock, and not at my office, obviously, and further there is no way for me to get them a letter that day. They say it’s too late to deliver it, etc. I get so furious that I hang up on them and burst into tears. My stepmother says, “Rrrrright, you must take a tablet” [meaning valium], but I call John and hand it over to him instead.

5. I fax them the @#@%^$@$^ release letter. John takes an afternoon off work to wait for them to deliver the clock. Amazingly, they call an hour or so after delivery time to say their truck broke down and they can’t deliver it. Can we be there the next day to receive it? John calls USF and tells them they have to make these clowns deliver the clock on Saturday – today – at no extra charge. End of story.

So we’ll see if/when we get it. And yeah, I realize I totally failed to make it short.