He opened up a ledger book. The ledger book looked familiar. Somewhere at my grandmother’s house on the outskirts of Tacoma back in the 1970’s I’d seen one that, it seemed to me, now appeared to have been transported to Amsterdam. I was standing in a narrow and crooked building that had been constructed in the 17th century. It was presently a tourist shop and a UPS pick up point. It was my third attempt at collecting my parcel.

“You must file a police report.” The instructions from the Amazon-Ready-Set-Answer department were clear. 

My question had been, “Where is my package?” By this point I had already been to a designated pick up point twice. 

After two attempts at the pick up point, I read that my package had somehow been “delivered” to my own address, I contacted Amazon who insinuated that I was engaging in fraud. A police report? It wasn’t as if my package could have been stolen from my front porch. Because, not being a 17th century house with a staircase and front porch, there is no front porch to my apartment building.

I imagined myself at the police station, insisting to a staunch Amsterdam police person that I must register a theft because UPS left a package on the street. Something told me that even if the side of me that is one heck of an ornery ex-opera singer got really riled up, I still wouldn’t walk away from the police station with a document that would suit the powers that be at Amazon and prompt a refund. 

Eventually I was told that the first pick up point, a 17th century house turned tourist shop and a UPS pick up point, was not THE exact 17th century house where my alternative electric toothbrush had been delivered.  I was told that I needed to go to a different 17th century house turned tourist shop and UPS pick up point.

The man leafed through his ledger. “Which date was it delivered?” he asked, after telling me that without the barcode I couldn’t pick up the package. UPS hadn’t sent me a barcode. I only had a tracking number. And as far as Amazon was concerned, I had already received my package.

But luckily for me, this grumpy businessman wrote all the packages he received down in a ledger book. Handwritten and old style and organized by last name. 

Later that day I was sitting at lunch with a married couple. Their family had endured the Holocaust.  

“Do you know someone who has been detained?” they asked.

I had just heard an acquaintance relate how her friend had been detained in the states, denied entry and then deported to France. 

We sat in silence for a moment. In my mind, the world before my eyes turned grey and fuzzy and the waves worming frantically in the air took me to a place I had never visited.