the FedEx saga

  In all of the plays I have been in (admittedly not that many) some of the actors give little gifts to everyone else in the cast and crew, or a nice note.  This time around, my son Tom, who really is a good artist, designed the T-shirts (another tradition) and I really liked the design so I decided that it would be fun to have a puzzle made of the same design and give one to each member of the cast and crew.  I thought of puzzles because there were some recurring themes about puzzles in the play and one of my lines included the word 'puzzle.'  Anyway, I thought it would be a fun idea and enlisted my son to actually order the puzzles and arrange for shipment.  I paid, while he did all the work.  He sent the order and then the nail biting began.  I didn't know that the puzzles were manufactured in China.  When the order was placed, we were told that delivery would be between November 3 and 8.  There really wasn't a faster option.  I had visions of all the container ships stuck in the west coast bays but FedEx uses airplanes, thank goodness.  The dates were reasonable except that our last performance was on November 7.  I had worrying visions of getting them on the 8th and then figuring out how to distribute them to everyone.  We're talking 20 people here.  On the 3rd my son started sending me updates as he got them.  The shipment had left China and arrived in Japan.  On the 4th, the shipment had passed through customs, after some unexplained problem, and was on its way to Indianapolis.  And finally, on the afternoon of the 5th, the box showed up on his front porch.  We were able to give them to everyone that evening, before the show started, and everyone loved them.  One lady said she was going to put hers together then preserve it and frame it as a memento of the show.  The only slight flaw was that one of the young actresses, who played the child star, missed one of her entrances because she was busy putting her puzzle together and lost track of time.  In her defense, the green room speaker wasn't working that night and she had no way of knowing where we were in the show. We covered for her and I don't think the audience even noticed.  Live theater is fun.  Kudos to FedEx for delivering as promised.