Travel Reference
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Back in D.C., with more than two months to go before we could return to Vieques to put the
downstairs level in order, we asked ourselves what we could accomplish in the meantime.
We couldn't easily buy more furniture without another kamikaze San Juan shopping
spree, but we
could
order smaller decorative items and ship them down.
First up: rugs.
I've always liked seagrass rugs, which I associate with tropical interiors. So I began surf-
ing the Internet for carpet vendors.
Our criteria were simple enough. We wanted rugs that were: (a) stylish; (b) reasonably
priced; and (c) capable of being shipped to Puerto Rico.
Sounds easy, right?
Wrong.
We might as well have been trying to ship a Hummer to Micronesia.
After a couple of frustrating hours I stumbled on a website offering a whiff of prom-
ise—the rugs were attractive, the prices were within our range (though near the top), and the
drop-down “shipping destination” list included Puerto Rico. I decided to call.
The man who answered the phone was a dead ringer, vocally, for Foghorn Leghorn, the
windbag rooster from
Looney Tunes
cartoons.
“Where are you from?” I couldn't help asking after a few moments of preliminary chat,
half expecting him to inform me that he'd been born in the
Warner Brothers
animation de-
partment.
“Chahlston,” he replied. “In the great state of South Carolina.” A pause. “And how about
you, sonny?”
I'm not making this up, he actually called me “sonny.”
“Washington, D.C.”
“Oh mah.”
I was surprised he didn't say
shut yo mouth
.
Having obviously decided the less said the better about our nation's capital (which had,
after all, been a bastion of Yankeedom during the War of Northern Aggression), he launched
into the business portion of our call.
“And Wawshington is whey-ah you all want yo roogs shipped?”
“Actually, no. I need them shipped to Puerto Rico.”
“Puerrrrto Rrrico,” he repeated, in a mock Spanish accent overlaid with a thick Southern
drawl.
“That's right,” I confirmed, fully prepared for him to gasp and tell me that such a man-
euver was
impawsible
. “Is that a problem?”
But he barely missed a beat.
“They-ah ah no problems, my yoong friend,” he said, “just solutions.”
Oh brother.
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