on living in a (very) foreign country

I had to send off some forms today - the administration of my father's estate still isn't complete.  After I'd dealt with the fact that my hapless lawyer in England had spelt one of my first names wrong, for the second time (last time he tried Janet; this time Jannet - it's actually Jennet, which may be a ridiculously odd name, but that's another story.  He should be able to read a copy of my passport (or of Ray's will, for that matter) - Photoshop is my best friend - and he'd mangled another form, too, which I had to correct - I was ready to despatch them.  Alice tried first - the FedEx pick-up in Eldorado wouldn't take anything international.  So I drove into town - A had already been out twice - to the main office.

"Please can I send this to England?  Sorry, it's a rather complicated address."  [the hapless lawyer lives in the depths of the countryside, now - of course, when I hired him, on the bereaved basis of him having been my father's lawyer, without doing due diligence, I thought he was still in Wimbledon.]

young man behind counter takes sheet of paper with address written on it

"New England?"

"No, England."

"Does New England have FedEx?"

"No, it's not New England.  England - er, Old England.  The real England.  And yes, it does have FedEx."

"So - New England ..."

"No - no Nueva Inglaterra - Inglaterra - Gran Bretaña"

"Ah, sí - Gran Bretaña"

Young man manages to type in address, which looks ok.  Puts my ten sheets of paper into a FedEx envelope.

"What you sending?"

"Papers!  ¡Documentos!"

Another long pause, while he types in the contents onto the FedEx form.  This reads "Patterns, paper.  For the making of clothes..." I'm asked to sign ...

"This doesn't seem quite right.  These are - well, legal documents."

"I put in "paper" and that's what it said"

We both laugh ... I give up, pay $88.40, and leave ...

OK - so I'm used to people not in New Mexico dropping the "New," and saying (especially, indeed, if people are in England) "So!  You're off to Mexico!" and my having to correct them, gently.  But this was a first.

And yes, I was of course wearing a mask through all of this, which may not have aided communication.  But.  

On the topic of Masks, am feeling perfectly fine, thank you ...