As a Texas transplant and a product of the southern education system, the fact that there were two separate (and very different) entities called “UPS” in one town confused me for a while. 

Did you need a college to learn how to deliver packages?  Was the brown uniform instilled at the freshman level?  Were the fraternities compiled of really hot, young deliverymen like the ones in my daytime fantasies?  It took me a few weeks to figure out the differences, and for my headache to subside from the confusion, but I survived.

With the 2010 Olympics taking place in Vancouver, B.C. — a town less than 175 miles from my house — I can do nothing but sweat the anticipation of attending next year’s events.  To do this I must explore all my traveling options.  After calculating the gas it would take to drive, the cost of an airline ticket, and the muscles it would take to bike there, I was at a loss.  That is until I heard the United Parcel Service’s slogan, “Big or small we ship it all.” 

I simply HAD to go in and see if they could help me out.

STEPH DEROSA: So I heard your slogan, and I need some help shipping something.

DANIALLE PADILLA: I’d be glad to help.  What are you shipping and to where?

DEROSA: Well, first let me ask, do you have boxes equipped with breathing holes?

PADILLA: We sure do.  But before we ship any live animals we’ll have to ask what is it you’d like to ship?  We can ship cats, dogs, spiders, and snakes.  No fish.

DEROSA: Oh, uh, well I’d like to ship myself to Vancouver, B.C. for the 2010 Olympics.

PADILLA: Sorry, but we can’t ship humans.

DEROSA: Am I too heavy?

PADILLA: No, we just can’t ship living, breathing humans.

DEROSA: You’d ship a dog to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, B.C., but not me?

PADILLA: We have shipped the huge, heavy, actual Olympic-sized underwater touchboard speed scales used to train Michael Phelps, but that’s the closest we’ve gotten to shipping an actual human to the Olympics.

DEROSA: Aw, c’mon.  What if I paid you extra?

PADILLA: No.  It’s illegal.

DEROSA: What if said I would bail you out of jail?

PADILLA: The answer is still no.

DEROSA: Fine.  But at least answer me one more question.  When you received the Olympic-sized touchboards back from Michael Phelps, did they smell like pot?

[The UPS Store, 1911 S.W. Campus Dr., Federal Way, 253.874.6583