Congrats Obama ... Your honeymoon's over - Where's my package?

Congrats Obama on the whole Inaugaration thing.

Now, let's get down to business: where's my package?

I ordered a nice tube amp this month from a distributor in Canada who sent it Expedited from Toronto on January 5th. It was due to arrive at my address on January 10th or 11th.

Well, it's January 20th and still no package. It left Toronto and entered the US on January 7th.

I called the shipper and Canada Post - the package is overdue, but Canada Post can't submit paperwork to the USPS to investigate until it's three weeks overdue (January 26th). Oh, and USPS can't share info on the track of a package with the Canadian postal service.

So, Obama and the new Democratic Congress - how about getting the GAO to assemble a report on delays in shipping international packages through customs and the USPS and overall quality and service going on here? Isn't there a better way to make this work?

A few years ago, another shipper sent a package to me containing some books - some were missing and removed when it went through customs. (The books were innocuous - one was a collection of "Goon Show" scripts and the others were books on American films.)

So, is this thing stuck in customs because the agents looked at it and don't know what the heck it is? Is it so shiny and pretty that one of the customs agents decided to take it home? Has it disappeared into some postal black hole and is now emerging in some caveman's hideaway as part of some government time/space warping experiment going on at the Pentagon? Hmmm?

I'm sorry - with NAFTA and the "Global Economy" all these political types keep talking about, all the open trade in the world isn't going to work if customs and the post office can't work in a reliable way.