Not such a Small World after all

My children have moved across the world. With my first parcel to them in hand I drive to Canada Post and place the package on the weigh scale.

Georgia, Old City

“M,m,m… Georgia…” says the post mistress.

“Yes. Not the American state of Georgia. It’s its own country.”

“It’s a package and not an envelope. International will go by boat and take 3 months.”

“Oh, no! I was hoping for 3 weeks. You mean I can separate it into 2 and then it will go airmail? And cost even less?” I scoot home, unwrap, re-wrap and trundle back again.

Post mistress peers at address, then at computer. “M,mm. Two Georgias come up.” She turns the screen to show me. “Now which one is it?”

I see two listings: Georgia and then Georgia-Sand.

I look lovingly at my parcels. No, they must not end up in the hands of a total stranger in some unknown country. Canada Post cannot reassure me they won’t. Then a faint bell rings in my mind. Isn’t there a place called Sandwich Islands? If there is, the post mistress has not heard.

A gentleman in line behind me takes out his cell phone. “What is it?” he asks. “Sandwich Georgia?”

“No, Georgia Sandwich,” I say.

He speaks those words into his phone and the answer comes back for us all to hear: “Georgia, part of the Sandwich Islands, a British territory.”

“Ah. It’s the other one, then. Just Georgia.”

“Where is it?” they both want to know.

I tell all I know. “Just south of Russia and on the Black Sea.”

“Oh,” said the gentleman, “if it were my kids I’d have had them go to that other Georgia. British, you know.”

Driving home I reflect that it took the post mistress, the computer, the kind gentleman, a cell phone and myself to finally pinpoint where my kids and grandchildren had got to. This world is too big!

The gentleman had a point.